Double Portrait

April 1, 2017

Perham (The Curiosities) relies on incremental repetition, rhyming couplets, and wordplay in this latest collection, the recipient of the 2016 Barnard Women Poets Prize. Most of the verse here is reminiscent of a combination of e.e. cummings and Robert Frost, as Perham playfully offers surreal meditations on not accepting the end of love. The poems' meanings come (or not) from a buildup of repeated lines, the best of which concern the loss of the narrator's father and mother. Some of the poems call up ghostly appearances and remembered phrases (as in the words, "because I'm your mother"). The poet also looks at happenings from a variety of perspectives, which adds a pleasing situational irony and sense of paradox. Although some poems with their repeated villanelle-like lines tend to wallow in cliches, most contain profundities, as when the poet considers the question: "Will you love me forever?" and realizes that the actual question should be "Will I love you forever?" with the answer being maybe, yes. VERDICT Poetry fans will want.--Diane Scharper Towson Univ., Maryland

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