Throw Yourself into the Prairie

January 1, 2014
In her debut poetry collection following a chapbook, Chabrier has crafted a dreamlike realm of wool socks and balloons, peaches and machines, blizzards and the sea. In language both sensuous and spare, Chabrier reveals the striking charms of a world uniquely her own. Here love is as whimsical as that game / where I write on your leg with my finger; September drones like a walrus . . . tossing in his sleep; and falling pianos seem to be floating and full of glitter. Her writing attests to the unmagnificent splendor in impossibility. Whether she's shoveling snow in a bath towel or feeling young and old / at the same time, Chabrier unites the witty and the nonsensical, the austere and the enchanting, the mischievous and the tender. As she so deftly states in Gerard: I am the white heat, / not of earth, but shiny / like a sequin. White-hot and otherworldly, Chabrier is a force to be reckoned with.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)