Selected Poems

Notes

A real visceralness and sense of loss eminates through all three of these pieces. There isn't much in the way of artifice or disguise; the narrator comes off pretty point blank, there's definitely the implied understanding that she's been through the stories her words are telling. The language is tight and economical in "That Distance Apart", easily the most self-conscious and intuitive of the bunch. "Baby Lazarus" and "The Mother Poem (two)" are a bit more loosely arranged upon the page and easier to get at in regards literal and figurative meaning. Kay is definitely concerned with the ideas and effects of geography and time; here she unflinchingly chronicles how they factor into the emotional responses that inform the mothers of her stories: watch especially how she plays around with the whole mother daughter dichotomy by half-teasing with multiple narrativeships in the middle sections of "That Distance Apart" and "The Mother Poem (two)."

		That Distance Apart
		Baby Lazarus
		The Mother Poem (two)