The Ruins of Nostalgia

The beautiful and arresting sixth book from Stonecipher (Model City) features a series of numbered prose poems titled “The Ruins of Nostalgia,” each ending with a play on the phrase “the ruins of nostalgia.” It’s a conceit that could be overdone in the hands of a less skilled poet, but Stonecipher’s use of first-person plural and her exceptional eye for detail bestow the collection with a commanding and appealing strangeness. Throughout, descriptions of nostalgia capture its potency, delicateness, and layers: “Nostalgia feels personal as a pearl feels personal in its shell.... Many people remember the downtown of a neighborhood from their youth, with its dowdy department store and its five-and-dime, but one person is nostalgic for the clove cigarettes you could buy one at a time from a glass jar, another is nostalgic for the little blue Bakelite birds that cost a quarter.” The poem ends, “nostalgia is specific yet indiscriminate, benign yet opportunistic, personal yet collective, and if the twentieth century taught us anything, it’s that anyone feels welcome to wander through the ruins of anyone else’s nostalgia.” Readers will savor this vivid, elegant inquiry into a timeless subject. (Oct.)