Path of Totality

Pollari follows Dead Horse with a searing description of losing a baby during labor. "By participating in it, I had already indicated interest in witnessing myself as a mother; the death of my baby was a humiliation of my desire," Pollari writes with straightforward, heartbreaking clarity. These poems are unflinching and powerful yet speak in simple, flat language that suggests everything can suddenly look different after a life-changing experience. "I recall myself from years ago like an image/ Of someone I no longer wish to be around." Pollari's gift lies in taking something normal and distorting it into something foreign and stunning: "The sun rises for the millionth time/ Like piss in the bladder," and everyone trails a "centipede of their pasts" behind them. She engages with the hardest personal moments while also looking beyond: "I want to lock myself into my apartment/ But I also want to flood the plain with the untreated/ sewage of my sadness." Pollari has suffered the indescribable and written from that place, showing how fierce love can be, and how unspeakable grief can be endured. (Feb.)