"How is it even possible for a person to recover from the murder
of a loved one? Or move forward with anything approaching detachment and peace?
In the new chapbook Paloma by
Jennifer E. Hudgens (Blood Pudding
Press December 2017), the speaker’s
dear friend has been brutally slain. Family and friends are stunned, in denial,
angry, heartbroken.
This
book is dedicated to Lauren Kate, the speaker’s friend. The resulting poems are
extremely touching; at times, they even made me cry. And at times, I laughed,
too (see “Too Much,” which imagines the dead friend as playful poltergeist).
With honesty and sensitivity, in Paloma the
speaker deconstructs the friend’s death"
and
"There is also no false sentimentality here. Fittingly, like a
good trial lawyer trying to impress a jury, the poet layers detail upon detail,
building her case. For example, in the poem “Spiders {A Lullaby},” the poet
compares death to a spider, saying “Fuck that spider I
want to peer into its mouth Count every
hair and tooth
Counting your bones fragmented
in its throat.”
For
all I know, Jennifer E. Hudgens could have had a tough time writing these
poems; however, the poetry in this chapbook looks and reads like the poems just
flowed out, carried by the speaker’s strong, distinctive voice."
from a wonderful new review by Eileen Murphy, of the Blood
Pudding Press poetry chapbook, "Paloma" by Jennifer E. Hudgens, appearing in Cultural Weekly
this week!
acquire your own copy of "Paloma" HERE -
https://www.etsy.com/listing/562664430/new-paloma-by-jennifer-e-hudgens?ref=shop_home_feat_1
Thank you very much to Eileen Murphy and Cultural
Weekly.
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