Let’s Not Live on Earth

Blake (Mr. West) examines Earth’s monsters, fear, and loss of fear as she turns her attention to new worlds. Broken into two sections, the book begins with a series of highly attractive poems that dwell in the mundane and are edged with something sinister. The mesmerizing 26-part poem “Monsters” humanizes the eponymous creatures and yet still terrifies: “So many new ways to wake a body/ if the eyes are in the hands.// Think, too, if you lifted your baby’s shirt/ and found eyes in the soft skin there.” The second half of the collection, “The Starship,” is a second-person narrative poem about building a life on a new planet. “That’s/ something you’ll be doing a lot now: adding/ on Earth to the ends of your sentences,” the speaker says, adjusting to her new circumstances. Living on another planet, married with a new baby, the “you” in the poem reads about Earth: “another mass shooting,/ a factory exploding, fires in Colorado,/ a new all-electric car from Honda,/ and the first woman President. You cry reading about everything.” There’s relief in being so far away from Earth’s violence and trivial struggles, yet Blake relates how “it feels like/ you fell, quick enough to/ reach the bottom of a well,/ and all you can do is look up.” (Dec.)