Room Where I Get What I Want

A controlled chaos percolates within Holmes's debut collection%E2%80%94poetry filled with fantastic frenzy, a silent revolt. "I ache to perform," she writes, "Mother is saying, don't touch, don't touch,/ in time with the pulsing blender." Indeed, this poetry is a wild and captivating performance, one characterized by intimate sharing as much as a distance that leaves readers guessing. This distance is created by Holmes's phantasmagoric world, which bursts with bombastic and absurd imagery: "On an interminable loop,/ that was spring. Birds committed suicide to get back at me, flung/ beak-first to the pavement at my feet. See what you've driven us to. See." A sense of crisis and agony radiates tangibly: "The best animals made me/ flinch, their bodies' flit, fitting together to prove they were alive." Occasionally, Holmes's poems stumble over their own metaphors, which become awkwardly overt; these slips seem out of place in her otherwise subtle work. Also, while her attempts at political expression are laudable, they lack the complexity found elsewhere in the collection. These breaks, fortunately, are rare, and Holmes's kinetic poetry reverberates with energy and emotion. (Apr.)