cover image Backup Singers

Backup Singers

Sommer Browning. Birds (SPD, dist.), $18 trade paper (90p) ISBN 978-0-9914298-0-6

Browning (Either Way I’m Celebrating) hits her stride with an intelligent, energetic, and playful second collection. Divided into four parts, these conversational and meditative poems exude a joy in wordplay: “During hide-and-seek she syntaxes behind the rose bushes.” The second section, “Friend,” is a meditation on the stakes and nuances of attachment. Repetition suggests a backstory—“There were the beers/ at Sophie’s, the whiskeys/ at Pete’s, the beers at/ Millie’s, the Bloody Marys/ at Sidewalk Café”—the names establishing a casual rhythm as the list continues. In the collection’s longest section, “Multifarious Array,” the speaker weaves descriptions of “Her poems” into 41 numbered prose segments: “Her poems are paths; yes, of course, through a dark unknown wood.” The interplay of humor, memory, contemplation, and observation stands out here: “You can live inside her poems. Really. You can open the door, stand inside, pull apart the blinds, peer out of the windows, scour love letters, ransack the refrigerator.” She continues, “In 1909, her poems crossed the United States of America by car. They were the first to do so, taking 59 days to travel from Manhattan to San Francisco.” Browning may as well be describing herself when she writes: “Her poems rejoice in their framing, their beams and floor joists, the elegance of their carpentry.” (June)