Raw. Fierce. Brave. Brazen. Honest.
Raw. Fierce. Brave. Brazen. Honest.
I wear these marks well,
my kisses from heaven
and my brushes with hell.
Poet Nicole Lyons is a force to be reckoned with. She is unafraid of harsh language and imagery, and is open-hearted in all of her revelations. Fans of short-form, Instagram-style poetry will savor Lyonsâs visceral snapshots of love, lust, and mania.
Some examples of poems that particularly stand out include the blunt and insightful âWhoreâ (âI am a whore, and I know I am/because I was given that label/by an angry man after I shared/his time and sipped at a seven/dollar coffee while we discussed/the weather and why the coastal/residents of British Columbia/should probably think about/packing up and moving inlandâ) and the inspiring âThe Ties that Bindâ (âBut the knot is weak/tied with oily fingers attached to hands/upon hands casting stones/at my feetâ). Lyons plays with line breaks in clever ways, especially in her shorter poems like âGood Workâ and âIn the Shadowsâ; she has a penchant for splitting thoughts and phrases for the most successful impact.
My only gripe with this volume is the lack of flow between the poetry and prose. While the terse poetry focuses largely on sex and romance in all of its beautiful and less beautiful forms, the final third of the book, pulled from Lyonsâs diary, feels distinctly separate. Her diary focuses on the struggles of her bipolar affective disorder through the lens of medication: over-medication, under-medication, a loving husband picking up her prescriptions, and a villainous pharmacist causing her headache after headache. Her interactions with this pharmacist consume a significant portion of the diary entries and while it is an awful saga that Iâm sure many folks with mental illness have faced, it does not mesh with the lusty verses only a few pages prior. But one thing comes through in all parts of The Lithium Chronicles: Lyonsâs earnest, powerful voice, which makes the entire volume well worth reading.