No Matter

June 1, 2019

In her second volume of poetry (following The After Party), Prikryl, poetry editor of the New York Review of Books, uses the trope of the urban, of cities in decline, to show readers that even deterioration can lead to something useful and unexpected. The poems use form, invented form, and free verse and carry single-word titles, with some titles repeated. "Anonymous," in which "The whitecaps blink like second thoughts," appears most often, and "Sibyl" recurringly references the ancient Greek prophetess who foretold of holy sites. Perhaps all decaying cities are holy? But we're getting ahead here; these poems aren't easy to pin down. Prikryl's language is often fragmented, obscuring meaning, which leaves readers to search and consider. Perhaps this is the point of art--and Prikyl's point: we see what we need to see, what we must. VERDICT As when reading John Ashbery, readers here will need to give themselves the words, allow magic to happen, as when walking up the street "was to be rinsed, / to lean into the current and hear/ its drowned voices, hear the one voice just stating the obvious."--Karla Huston, Appleton, WI

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 19, 2019
In this atmospheric second collection, Prikryl (The After Party) catalogues an urban dreamscape full of unexpected revelations and slow transformations. Titles often serves as the opening lines of poems, lapsing into contemplation the way a city wanderer might examine each passing street: “Little York, every great/ city leaves a little city in its wake.” Repeated titles (“Anonymous,” “Waves,” “Sybyl”) create a strange, lulling music as Prikryl’s poetic line shifts deftly from stream of consciousness to piercing insight. Many of these poems grow to a point in the style of lyric essays. “Upper East Side’s where you want to cultivate friends,” the speaker declares in “Stoic:” “In this city friendship’s/ the main mode of disaster prep./ Basements and subbasements busy/ with boilers....” But lest the poems appear merely rhetorical, Prikryl delivers poignant closure: “I found it in myself because I had to,/ the one or two things that/ make it endurable here, and what they/ boil down to is indifference.” Elsewhere, Prikryl’s forms innovate to invoke their topics, as in one of several “Asylum” poems, in which the speaker battles insomnia with attention to actual things—“like when I can’t sleep I say to myself/ the the the the/ the.” In this striking book, readers are privy to a mind’s ongoing conversation with New York.

June 1, 2019
Echoing her dynamic debut collection, The After Party (2016), a book praised by John Ashbery as truly moving, Prikryl continues to travel circuitously within her unique landscape. These 67 poems, each with a single-word title, do not reveal themselves casually; close attentiveness is needed. Prikryl is rooted in shared experience and writes in an intimate observational tone as she considers our fraught culture. Her poetry is exacting and tough, yet compassionate and solicitous. For example, "2016," a riotously emotional poem, ends: Mud and dust and stuff I can't describe / push his feeling deeper as he grows. / My memories all feel like news / as if I've been good at getting them wrong. Seven poems are titled "Waves." in one, she writes: Waves the unstable ones, burn up / and fall down, consuming / themselves, theirs the permanence . Prikryl's focus elegantly pivots in and out of hushed encounters in poems that, with careful reading, gracefully astound.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)