Detail

Detail by Elizabeth Savage is just as vivid in conjuring place, although its style is way more elliptical, oscillating between scoured-down lyrics and even smaller shards (perhaps Ann has me thinking about the shells and shell-fragments you pick up on the New Jersey shore). Elizabeth’s locations, however, are the Richmond, Virginia of her girlhood, the West Virginia she inhabits now, and, in glimpses, Pacific beaches. Sensory detail transports: one poem “reeks of peaches” while another manifests “a gridded garter snake” who “basks/ trusting the asphalt when a motorized warmth/ pulses suggestively.” The most salient aspect of this collection, though, is its exploration of edges: seasonal hinges, crusts of earth pushed up by crocuses, a beautician’s shears, and more. I confess I reread these poems while gnawing the ears of a dark chocolate bunny, but Details’ refreshments are better.
Read the full review by Lesley Wheeler

_{Excerpt from Detail:}

Pacific

Night begins chopping apart the next day, under
dressed, the will pressed, the end

of the line. Salt moves mountains, then
splits waves godless as the green. All

intention is arranged by the effort. The oysters
taste of it, seasoned with hesitation

an ocean of refusal is what stood you
here. Cut by wind

reduced to reversals of light. Without
a compass, no other place

is in reach. Nowhere else is near
but the wind, crowded with reflection

The glinting beach empties of struggle. Once
the fight readied your skin

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Detail

Pacific

Night begins chopping apart the next day, underdressed, the will pressed, the end

of the line. Salt moves mountains, thensplits waves godless as the green. All

intention is arranged by the effort. The oysterstaste of it, seasoned with hesitation

an ocean of refusal is what stood youhere. Cut by wind

reduced to reversals of light. Withouta compass, no other place

is in reach. Nowhere else is nearbut the wind, crowded with reflection