Francesca Bell’s book What Small Sound is gorgeous, raw, and disarmingly honest beginning to end. Her poems encompass the scope of her life, her family’s life, plus her generous and empathetic assessment of the larger world. She writes of a struggle to be “normal” in the fiery, broken, unpredictable chaos she sees around her. With skill and passion, she speaks of love, of rape, of deafness, or of holding still for a tarantula, of why she doesn’t drink, of who left fingerprints on the bullets of the Las Vegas shooter, or of a mammogram that made her think of the Mars rover. Two quotes of hers from very different poems are unforgettable: “I can’t navigate to a life of before / and keep falling face-flat against after.” And still: “I want to feel what’s next / curled inside me, tight as fists.” Read this book. You will keep wanting to find what’s after, and you won’t forget any of it.
—Susan Terris, author of Familiar Tense
Francesca Bell’s poems fish wonder and gratitude and eros from a world brushed by grief and illness and violence. I celebrate this poet’s tender commitments to remaining open, especially after loss and even when tragedy triggers an instinct to shelter or retreat. In this way, Bell turns our degrees of separation into songs for contact. The poetic praying found in What Small Sound feels like the grace our moment needs.
—Geffrey Davis, author of Night Angler
"A moving and musical set of poetic works." —Kirkus Reviews (starred)
"Between grief and relief, Francesca Bell's poems don't pause, they flow — like a warm bath, and someone quietly bringing a candle; then a cold shower, and the body awakened to spring." —Lúcia Leão, RHINO Poetry
"Many of these poems use wordplay between the title and the themes which are unpacked while reading and rereading each one. The stark contrasts between the topic initially hinted at in the title and what the poem’s subject actually is, heightens the tensions between each piece. Those silent spaces act as meditations whispered to the reader, and to the speaker as they both reciprocally ruminate on domestic life and expectations." —Shannon Vare Christine, Caesura Literary
"Francesca Bell (Bright Stain) writes poems that chime like the bell of her own name: bright but resonant, sharp but familiar, lush and likely to echo long after its initial strike. What Small Sound is Bell's second collection, and it brings together a haunting yet beautiful set of poems centered on the losses—or potential for them—that encircle her... Despite these losses, and the fear and heaviness that accompany them, Bell writes poems that insist pain is only one part of every story." —Sara Beth West, Shelf Awareness
Ultimately, What Small Sound entreats us to value the terror, sorrow, and hardship in life as much as its moments of beauty and love and sensuousness. As readers, the poet's appeal to us is easier to accept, and makes more sense because she leads by example: "Oh world," Bell sings plaintively in "After the Hearing Test," "leave me slowly. / Let me dally over each diminishing return." — Sarah Kain Gutowski, Colorado State UniversityCenter for Literary Publishing
"What Small Sound... is an exploration of life, death, and love, and of the myriad ways these essential elements of human existence intersect and define each other... These poems seek to bring all that's lost and unspoken into the light, so that we might connect with it, with the world, and, maybe, in brief and unexpected moments, with each other." —Vivian Wagner, Pedestal Magazine
"Powerful and full of emotion, with themes that will engage readers from many different audiences." —Sarah Michaelis, Library Journal
12/22/2023
Following 2019's multi-award finalist Bright Stain, poet/translator Bell returns with a second collection focusing largely on women and the issues they face (many poems deal with abortion and rape), while also addressing themes like gun violence and highlighting the predominantly white gunmen who commit these crimes. Bell has not completed middle school and has also had a varied employment history; these experiences work their way into her verse in snippets. Throughout, family matters and mental illness within a family are carefully considered. Readers feel carried through the lives of the children in the poems: a baby girl visible on a sonogram and a son in the hospital with a concussion—and experience their struggles as they age. In "Dusk, the Day I Drove My Child to the Partial Hospitalization Program," Bell observes, "I do everything meticulously/ walk motherhood's narrow ledge, and still stand/ watching light fade/ through the oaks' snarled tracery, watching it wane as the sky goes/ from rose to pink to pale. It ends up black no matter," demonstrating a sense of helplessness while watching children grow that readers will be able to relate to. VERDICT Powerful and full of emotion, with themes that will engage readers from many different audiences.—Sarah Michaelis
★ 2022-12-28
Bell’s second collection of poems offers a portrait of motherhood, devastation, and hope.
The author’s first collection of poems, Bright Stain (2019),was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award and the Julia Suk Award. Her newest book is a testament to her finely tuned poetic talent as she turns to grapple with far-reaching societal issues, including mental illness, gun violence, and sexual assault. More than anything, these works explore “the necessary work of opening” one’s self up to the world. The collection is split into four parts that weave together large-scale issues, such as domestic and societal violence against women, and individual challenges in the author’s exploration of deafness. The titular poem describes Bell in an audiologist’s booth attempting to wrestle with “the stillness out there strong / enough to suck me in.” Similar stillness is captured and preserved in poems that consider questions about protecting children from a cruel world and how one prepares loved ones, and oneself, to face life’s trials and unfair rules. Bell makes use of a wide variety of poetic structures to augment this analysis, which will keep readers on their toes. Her mastery of language yields such affecting lines as “your illness rummaged / inside you, digging, clawing, / sniffing for the sweetest parts.” Perhaps Bell’s greatest feat is her study of what is possible for a body in distress—how it can receive joy, what it can endure, and how far it can carry itself for love. Although the book is full of gut-wrenching loss, it makes room for indispensable moments of humor and hope. It offers poignant lessons on how to maintain strength amid sorrow and how one can find strength in quiet moments: “I want to feel what’s next / curled inside me.”
A moving and musical set of poetic works.
