SCATTERED FRAGMENTS

This debut collection of poems touches on relationships and emotional states.

In her volume of 22 poems, Miller adapts work originally published on her blog, jachelle7.com. As the book’s title suggests, these pieces are short, sketching out moods or situations. They often rely on typography and placement—sometimes just two or three lines per page—to help convey meaning. For example, the opening poem, “et un,” begins flush left: “A fleeting gaze rests.” As the piece continues, the lines are set flush right, as if to suggest both emotional and physical distance: “Within, / a yearning, / a crestfallen cyclicality, / a nerve, / calls for a phantom voice / to s p e a k.” “Crestfallen cyclicality” falls short, since while feeling let down could happen regularly, it’s not the regularity itself that feels disappointed. But the spaced-apart letters and the italicized, almost whispered s effectively embody separation. The poem goes on to say that unrequited love is “what inevitably exists est / une douleur, / a pain.” Here, as with several pieces in the collection, French vocabulary is used in a puzzling way, seemingly more decorative than poetically necessary. Some poems’ images miss the mark in other ways, such as “checkmate,” in which lovers about to separate are “like men / bred and trained / by a gallant cavalry.” A group of men working together is inapt for a parting couple, and a cavalry may be well trained, but they’re not trainers. Miller’s allusive images do sometimes work well, suggesting much with little, as when a failed bid for attention is “a weary hook / … / In time, a dock nears. / Night falls.” But meanings can be overly opaque, as in “ ‘pau-’ / plight,” making the collection’s title all too accurate. Mcallister supplies monochrome digital illustrations that depict elegant faces but sometimes-clumsy bodies.

While delivering some intriguing moments, these poems often fail to connect.