Cristalle Smith reviews Melissa Spohr Weiss' Motion & Force (2022) via Instagram,

Cristalle Smith was good enough to provide a first review of Melissa Spohr Weiss' Motion & Force (2022) via Instagram. Thanks so much! You can read the original post here. As she writes:

Motion & Force
Melissa Spohr Weiss
@sonnets_and_sloths

above/ground press 2022
@rob_mclennan_writer

Form frees noise, more than cacophony, in Melissa Spohr Weiss’s Motion & Force. Nip utterance builds alliteration into terse experiences that defy narrativizing: “Can a nature-eater earn / tenure? Can a cute crane // taunt a recent teen?” (“Utterance”). Listen. “O, Calypso! I hold paid holidays,” an unknown speaker cries in “Physical Body” while “Holy playboy ladys abolish / cops.” Find sense in pattern, repetition, an alphabet soup of rules to count to ten. Tin cans spill tomato broth and squishy noodles.

Is that an oboe boo floating in? A clarinet reed? Read the lines down, then up, then down again: “A rat entered yer rented / tavern. Ate yer nerve” (“Everyday Event”). Tercets with enjambment. Some kind of sonnet(not?) That’s okay, “An erect centaur can’t eat / true tuna” (“Utterance”). Did you have a dream(nightmare) you can’t remember? But still hear the sounds? Pluck string taut and mince meaning-acrostic-acoustic-an office, “O conifer comet!” (“Motion & Force”). Some poetry makes sense sounds in pilfering a rabbit tart.

Get in, losers. We are blasting this anthem until 5:00 AM.

new from above/ground press: Motion & Force, by Melissa Spohr Weiss

Motion & Force
Melissa Spohr Weiss
$5

Compression

In moonrise, cis men croon, pose
penis, sip sermons. Impose roominess.
Soon, moss ripens, minces crimson spines.
I spin poems, iron coins, pin ripe roses
on composers. Sirs piss, semipro. Rinse spoons
in poison. Scoop sonic noise. Impress
me, morons. Moose is risen.
Cross is nicer crisp. Secs (sic)
is remiss. SOS.


About Motion & Force:

This collection responds to and blurs the line between Erin Moure’s Furious and Christian Bök’s Eunoia. In true Bök fashion, each poem strictly adheres to a set parameter, making use of only the letters in their titles. The content of each poem responds to key concepts Moure addresses in the second part of her book, “The Acts,” where she outlines her poetic process.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
September 2022
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Melissa Spohr Weiss is a PhD student at the University of New Brunswick. Her work has been published in Arc Poetry Magazine, Riddle Fence, The Malahat Review, CV2, Prairie Fire, The Maynard, Oakland Arts Review, and elsewhere. She is an editorial assistant for The Fiddlehead and is originally from Kelowna, BC.

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