{"id":686,"date":"2020-07-26T18:53:21","date_gmt":"2020-07-26T22:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=686"},"modified":"2020-07-26T18:53:21","modified_gmt":"2020-07-26T22:53:21","slug":"review-of-sugar-fix-by-kory-wells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=686","title":{"rendered":"Review of Sugar Fix by Kory Wells"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>
\n

Kory Wells. Sugar Fix. <\/em>Terrapin Books, 2019. 109 pgs. $16.00. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sugar. Don\u2019t we all love it. In chocolate, in cookies, in\u2014as Kory Wells so wonderfully describes in one of her poems\u2014red velvet cake. And don\u2019t we all love that other sugar, that \u201cI need a little sugar, Baby,\u201d as Wells also explores in poems like \u201cDear Reader,\u201d \u201cLove Me Anyway,\u201d and \u201cHe drove a four-door Chevy, nothing sexy, but I\u2019d been thinking of his mouth for weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Sugar Fix, <\/em>Wells\u2019 first full-length collection, employs sweetness\u2014and its absence\u2014as a conceit to explore identity, ancestry, and the effect of the past on the present. The first few poems suggest that the collection will explore personal history and individual desire without wrestling with any of the social tensions of our time, but just as the reader relaxes into that belief, the poems begin to hint at that fact we all know, how personal history is inevitably entwined with all of the sins and failures of social and national history. One of the most admirable qualities of this collection\u2014and the quality that really makes it a collection rather than simply an accumulation of forty or so poems\u2014is how subtly Wells is able to weave personal ancestry with national history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In many of the poems, Wells chooses a colloquial, idiomatic diction. The voice is often conversational without being plain-spoken, conversational, that is, without sacrificing personality. \u201cHe drove a four-door Chevy, nothing sexy, but I\u2019d been thinking of his mouth for weeks\u201d begins this way:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

when he finally called me up
and asked if I\u2019d like to get
some ice cream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was full from supper and my
thighs sure didn\u2019t need it, but
I\u2019ve never struggled with<\/p>\n\n\n\n

priorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Already, we know what this speaker is about, and we know that she knows, too. There\u2019s no circling around desire for her, no pretending she doesn\u2019t want what she wants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An element of craft that surprises me is how Wells uses the line, especially in stanza two. Ordinarily, I\u2019d wonder if a poet who broke lines with words like \u201cbut\u201d and \u201cwith\u201d or even \u201cmy\u201d had thought much about lineation. Wells clearly has, for throughout the rest of the poem, lines break with much stronger words, and as the poem heats up, she ends three consecutive lines with the word \u201chim\u201d: \u201cI\u2019d been praying about him. \/ How I wanted him, \/ how if I couldn\u2019t have him, \/ I wanted to be free\u2026\u201d So what is she doing in stanza two? Ordinarily, in a sentence consisting of three independent clauses linked by coordinating conjunctions, which is the grammar of this sentence, both of  those conjunctions, here \u201cand\u201d and \u201cbut,\u201d would be preceded by commas. In this sentence, however, Wells uses a comma before \u201cbut\u201d but not before \u201cand.\u201d The effect of this choice is that readers anticipate that whatever follows \u201cmy\u201d will be another item the speaker is \u201cfull from.\u201d So we are slightly surprised when the sentence turns to \u201cmy \/ thighs sure didn\u2019t need it.\u201d Reading this poem for the first time, I noticed my surprise and also my delight in it. The next clause, however, is preceded by a comma, so the \u201cbut\u201d takes on more force. I was surprised and delighted again when I read \u201cI\u2019ve never struggled with \/ \/ priorities,\u201d as the speaker reveals that self-discipline or restraint, characteristics we ordinarily value, aren\u2019t considerations for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poem continues in its colloquial way until we reach the final stanza:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I kept telling myself
it was just an ice cream,
but even then I knew
love is a kind of ruin.
When those cones arrived
so thick and voluptuous,
I almost blushed to open my mouth
before him, expose my eager tongue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That ice cream, whether rounded mounds of chocolate fudge or swirls of soft serve, has come to represent all desire, and somehow we know that the speaker will be satisfied. \u201cHe drove a four-door Chevy,\u2026\u201d is a playful poem, demonstrating the fun we can have with language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other poems are more serious, especially those that explore the speaker\u2019s Cherokee ancestry and questions of her extended family also including African American members. The history of race in the United States is decidedly peculiar, especially the detailed categories based on so-called blood quanta that were created by the legal system. In \u201cThe Assistant Marshal Makes an Error in Judgment,\u201d Wells describes an occasion when one simple mark on a page utterly changes a man\u2019s life. The poem begins with an extended sentence describing the marshal who is working in North Carolina soon after the Civil War. Mid-way through the poem, attention shifts to another man:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assistant Marshal J.T. Reeves, who some call
carpetbagger, now sits amiably on the porch
with one Willis Guy, farmer, age 59,
and reads back to Mr. Guy
all he has written, so mistakes may be
corrected on the spot. The marshal is not
from around these parts, and Mr. Guy,
previously known as
Mulatto, previous to that known as
Free Colored Person, if asked would claim
Catawba, Cherokee, even the dark Porterghee,
but figures it best to keep his silence
as the government man\u2019s ditto of Column 6. Like that,
Mr. Guy and all his kin become
White. Mr. Guy would admit he isn\u2019t
as good at letters as his children,
but squinting sideways at the marshal\u2019s ledger,
he knows the unmistakable difference between W and M.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So much is included here in these few lines. We don\u2019t need to think too hard to realize that Mr. Guy\u2019s appearance suggests he is white; only another marshal, one from the area and knowing Mr. Guy\u2019s family, would know to write M. Though stating little directly, Wells is able to convey much. Even in a poem of this more serious subject matter, she retains her colloquial speech patterns, e.g. \u201cfigures it best,\u201d \u201call his kin,\u201d and \u201csquinting sideways.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wells brings these themes together in \u201cSome Notes and Three Word Problems on Red Velvet Cake,\u201d one of the most ambitious poems in the collection. Divided into sections, the poem progresses through figurative and symbolic association rather than narrative, drops of food coloring linked to drops of blood, the law regulating each, DNA tests confirming some familial speculation. In this poem, sugar doesn\u2019t simply satisfy a craving. The sweetness serves instead as a gesture toward racial reconciliation, though the poem also makes clear that the speaker\u2019s family, and likely all families, have a long way to go before racial identities will not outweigh every other difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poems in Sugar Fix <\/em>reveal that Kory Wells is skilled with received forms as well as free verse, that she can tell her stories from multiple angles and in multiple ways. Few of the poems resemble each other on the page. This variety of form is particularly effective in a collection that continually circles its linked themes of desire and ancestry. Her story is certainly shared by many Americans, whether we acknowledge it or not, but her approach to that story is uniquely her own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kory Wells. Sugar Fix. Terrapin Books, 2019. 109 pgs. $16.00. Sugar. Don\u2019t we all love it. In chocolate, in cookies, in\u2014as Kory Wells so wonderfully describes in one of her poems\u2014red velvet cake. And don\u2019t we all love that other sugar, that \u201cI need a little sugar, Baby,\u201d as Wells also explores in poems like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[41,43],"class_list":["post-686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-areviewaweek","tag-kory-wells","tag-terrapin-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":688,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686\/revisions\/688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}