Mr Darcy Broke My Heart by Beth Pattillo

Mr Darcy Broke My Heart by Beth Pattillo

A honeycomb long vacated by honeybees still possesses an echo of the swarm, / a lingering song . Living things are made and make themselves: My bones came first. / Like long needles, / they knitted muscle / and tendon / and tissue and skin. / Filled themselves / with marrow.

In her debut collection, Brianna Noll fuses the scientific and fantastic, posing probing questions that explore the paradoxes of experience. Interweaving themes of creation, art, and nature, the poet gives voice to animate and inanimate figures such as woolly mammoths, star-nosed moles, cells, mylar balloons, and puzzle boxes. Her vivid poems obscure the line between what is literal and what is figurative. The result is alchemic and ethereal -- each verse intricately layered with sharp observation as well as emotional and intellectual exploration and questioning.

Collectively, the poems draw significantly on Japanese culture and language in their imagery, with cultural nuances and implications embedded in words and expressions. They tend to be tied, not to subjects, but to ways of seeing and considering the world. Noll's lyrical voice reflects a curious and imaginative approach that results in tight poems, typically enjambed, which build together into a thoughtful collection. Her work offers ways of seeing and considering the world that exceed our lived experience, begging the reader to consider how far we are willing to go when faced with roadblocks, doubts, and uncertainties.

Beth Pattillo is a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) ordained preacher who has served churches in Missouri and Tennessee. While serving as an associate minister at Woodmont Christian Church in Nashville, she created Faith Leader, which has helped hundreds of people define, design, and implement the ministries to which God has called them.