Blood Work

There is an immediacy and intimacy that drives Siegel's debut collection of poems%E2%80%94the winner of the 2015 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry%E2%80%94which suggests, at its core, fragility and yearning but also hope: "I want to make music/ from what isn't broken// make memory disappear/ like medicine absorbed// in the blood." With a keen eye for the way smaller and often fraught moments point to larger shifts%E2%80%94the discarded flowers of failed love affairs, heart-wrenching but also tender interactions with a grieving mother, the minutiae of medical treatment%E2%80%94the poems engage with, as the title poem puts it, "all the things that contain us but cannot." The fulcrum of this work resides in the tension between the mind, which wrestles with loneliness while seeking love and meaning, and a sickly, often ailing body. Even periods of physical respite are framed against the backdrop of suffering: "No, I am not hurting in this moment/ I am memory's lips sewn shut.// The sky is pink now, red in some places/ and the red does not remind me of blood." But even Siegel's most excruciating experiences melt away into the sublime; and though there are instances of sentimentality or preciousness, the poems are well constructed and the recurrence of certain themes ties the work together. (Mar.)