| Author: | Jennifer Moore | ISBN: | 9781629220321 |
| Publisher: | University of Akron Press | Publication: | March 15, 2015 |
| Imprint: | University of Akron Press | Language: | English |
| Author: | Jennifer Moore |
| ISBN: | 9781629220321 |
| Publisher: | University of Akron Press |
| Publication: | March 15, 2015 |
| Imprint: | University of Akron Press |
| Language: | English |
Jennifer Moore's debut collection takes its title from a bullfighting technique in which the matador draws the bull with his cape; in these poems, however, traditional moves are reconfigured and roles are subverted. In a broader sense, the word "veronica" (from the Latin vera, or "true" and the Greek eikon, or "image") functions as a frame for exploring the nature of visual experience, and underscores a central question: how do we articulate events or emotions that evade clear understanding? In order to do so, the figures here perform all manner of transformations: from vaudeville star to cartoonist's daughter, from patron saint to "Blue-Eyed Torera;" they are soothsayers, apothecaries, curators, often conjuring selves out of thin air. This dilating and "shape-shifting" of perspective becomes a function of identity: "the absorber and the absorbed become one." Indeed, both speaker and listener must be crafted-willed into being-by each other ("Be your own maestro"), and are apparitions until then. Through a flick of the wrist or a trick of the eye, these speakers understand that construction of a self comes only through performance of that self—which performances are often punctuated with a wink, an unswerving gaze, or both at once.
Jennifer Moore's debut collection takes its title from a bullfighting technique in which the matador draws the bull with his cape; in these poems, however, traditional moves are reconfigured and roles are subverted. In a broader sense, the word "veronica" (from the Latin vera, or "true" and the Greek eikon, or "image") functions as a frame for exploring the nature of visual experience, and underscores a central question: how do we articulate events or emotions that evade clear understanding? In order to do so, the figures here perform all manner of transformations: from vaudeville star to cartoonist's daughter, from patron saint to "Blue-Eyed Torera;" they are soothsayers, apothecaries, curators, often conjuring selves out of thin air. This dilating and "shape-shifting" of perspective becomes a function of identity: "the absorber and the absorbed become one." Indeed, both speaker and listener must be crafted-willed into being-by each other ("Be your own maestro"), and are apparitions until then. Through a flick of the wrist or a trick of the eye, these speakers understand that construction of a self comes only through performance of that self—which performances are often punctuated with a wink, an unswerving gaze, or both at once.
