TALES FAERIES TELL ABOUT HUMANS

A collection of speculative poems that blends folklore with social commentary.

Binkley explores the tension between otherworldly beings and humans in this book. She provides lexical and historical background on the term “faery,” which is not necessarily the tiny winged creature of popular culture. The first poem’s speaker recounts reading so voraciously that “the volumes would disembody / themselves with exhaustion.” In “The Parapet,” another speaker is chastised by a jeering crowd of people who believe anyone who is alive and awake “is an enormous threat and security issue.” A seamstress speaks truth to power, telling a king and courtiers that they cling to old ideas and too easily dismiss innovative thinkers in “The Visitor in Almost Linen.” “Exactly” tells a tale about how girls were “tricked into heartbreak” so their love “could be sold as liquor in the / faery bars.” In “A Letter Home,” a fairy complains to her sister about how mortals misuse time. An oracle feels burdened by her gift and laments that other girls must suffer the same fate in “Again.” An elderly fairy insists that one must define their identity in “The Old Woman.” In “Parched,” a naiad becomes exasperated when a thirsty man asks her to take him to a deep well and fails to comprehend that she is the source of water. The final poem, “Nights Breathe,” acknowledges that even mortals can occasionally recognize magic in the world. Binkley’s interpretation of humanity through these supernatural perspectives is unique. She uses evocative imagery when describing “a sigh which sounded like an echo in a cave against a body of water” or how “color filled the sky, so pastel and textured as an / easter cardigan.” However, some of the poems are so abstract that they are nearly indecipherable: “I bathe in solutions again which is my habit / more than I bathe in water / to rinse off in magic 8 ball juice.” Readers may grow weary of the speakers’ bitter tone or enjoy a gimlet-eyed view of life’s frustrations.

A creative, if thinly veiled, collection that catalogs misgivings about society.