Catherine Barnett’s Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space was published yesterday by Graywolf. Grief and farce collide throughout the book, the vertebrae of which are ten exquisite prose poems called “Studies in Loneliness.” The opening stanza of Solutions finds the child speaker asking for her own room, away from her two little sisters. She wants to move to a spare near her “father’s prized ice machine dropping its tiny cubes automatically, all night long.” Solitude vs. loneliness—the dilemna of most writers who want to observe, be apart, sometimes seemingly cold to the rest of the world. In the second “Studies in Loneliness” entry we find “I like to fall asleep and wake up in a cold room.” The sixth ends with “Ash on my winter hat.” By the penultimate installment of “Studies in Loneliness,” we learn the speaker “keeps buying secondhand cashmere sweaters because wearing cashmere makes me feel as if [she’s] wearing another human body.” And in the last poem we are back to the cold, this time refilling a dying friend’s “glass with cold water.” In between these “studies” are more gorgeous poems about living with the knowledge of our singular existence, what we must so often face alone.
Congratulations, Catherine!
Thanks, Denise! I have two earlier books of Barnett's and look forward to reading this one, too.
Posted by: Susan Aizenberg | May 11, 2024 at 09:45 AM
She is an enormously gifted poet.
Posted by: Terence Winch | May 11, 2024 at 10:50 AM