National Park

Liebowitz revels in the pleasures of both experimental and conventional poetic gestures in her debut. She opens with familiar lines from the Marvelettes’ song “Please Mr. Postman,” which, robbed of melody, take on a defamiliarized urgency. Liebowitz keeps readers similarly off-center for most of the book, consistently shifting comprehension. Liebowitz makes a disorienting move in “An Ode: You Never Forget How to Ride a Bike,” in which she counters the preceding poem, “Outside Sucks,” writing that “Outside is okay. Different salt, sidewalked still leaving bay-salt topologizing.” The musicality of alliteration and internal rhyme steady the challenge to sense-making. Though the white space is measured and generous, creates tension with language that is teeming, even cramped. The prose piece “After Hoarders on A&E” nearly chases the reader off the page, barreling through such lines as “Emergence racing, roles imposing, documents edging to feel again behind familial containment.” While Gertrude Stein and Lyn Hejinian come to mind, there is a current, recognizable panic that moves the collection from in-conversation-with into the space of creating a new conversation. Liebowitz’s commitment to the avant-garde is powerful, and her movements will force readers to question their perception. (May)