Lyrically resonate and painterly in their attention to form, the poems in Erinn Batykefer’s debut collection Allegheny, Monongahela explore such disparate subjects as family history, violence, art, coming of age, science, and the natural world. And like the rivers beautifully paired in the title, the undercurrent coursing through these poems is place, specifically the muddied doglegged landscape of western Pennsylvania. Writes Baytekefer, “ I am an unreadable map….each curve hairpinning the high ground blind.”
Hers is a language at once torrential yet controlled, dark yet luminous, “a blush of blood left in the napkin after dinner’s cleared.” Allegheny, Monongahela is a haunting, sinuous debut from a young writer with an ear for “fire, and the coming ash.”
—Quan Barry, author of ASYLUMS and CONTROVERTIBLES
All wounds and precise cutting, Errin Batykefer's first collection is a series of invocations to memory — of the divided self in the body of another, the blood residue after loss. We read to know the triumph of these brilliant and life-saving poems on the page. The marks they leave are indelible. I love this manuscript and believe the poet has a luminous future.
—Hilda Raz, author of ALL ODD AND SPLENDID, TRANS, and DIVINE HONORS
Close to the bone, Erinn Batykefer’s poems—sharp-edged as O’Keeffe’s paintings, sharp-edged as an anorexic sister—skeletons visible and harrowing. “Sister, no slighter body / can make you more miraculous,” writes this poet. Harsh and devastating torrents of rage, love, and misdirected desire surge through this book, gritty as Pittsburgh, tender as bruised peaches. These poems tangle with a grandfather’s murder, a family’s violence, the wildness of sex, love indulged or denied—what the poet calls “things known but impossible to tell.” Her language soars like the aria “you must believe you are nothing” to sing. “The reins of need and want / direct nothing, are only there to hang onto,” she warns us. Hang on! Erinn Batykefer’s poems scour to bedrock any easy assumptions. Her poems are floodwaters, her poems are the river’s skin after rain. Necessary and vibrant, Erinn Batykefer’s poems help us savor our flawed and damaged world. Here is an important new voice in American poetry.
—Peggy Shumaker, author of JUST BREATHE NORMALLY, BLAZE, and UNDERGROUND RIVERS
