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| Take Nothing With You
ISBN: 9781609384586
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / University of Iowa Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: POETRY / American / General.;
In her debut collection, Schweig explores the cadence of the city and its everyday dramas, the pain of loss and abandonment, and the amnesia of the heart that allows a person to love again. The poet flits through the urban landscape, overseeing juvenile offenders at community service, reminiscing at Brighton Beach, observing the distant lights from a rooftop. The collection's standout is "After Catullus," a pitch-perfect expression of spurned love: "When you find the man I loved// languishing in some remote city, screwing woman after/ woman, loving none, tell him how I gave the looters all his books." A mournful ode to an unborn daughter and another to a recently lost mentor captivate as well. These themes of loss and absence also recur through mentions of her estranged father, as in "Stories": "Once upon a time there was a man. And then there wasn't." Schweig also succeeds when she loosens the reins, "Sehnsucht" is a rollicking demonstration of wordplay: "He's thus: He's tense, he's uncut, he's/ nuts." She falters occasionally with platitudes, such as "we all, now and then, walk alone,/ especially in the City of Men"-a warmed-over description of affected urban loneliness. Schweig is most successful when poking at her own wounds, delivering something raw and striking. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Sarah V. Schweig is the author of the chapbook S . Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Black Warrior Review , BOMB , Boston Review , HTML Giant , the Iowa Review, Tin House , Verse Daily , the Volta , West Branch , the Winter Anthology, and elsewhere. She currently lives in New York City. |
