THE ALCHEMY OF BLOOD

The poet, a psychologist, uses Jungian concepts to explore childhood, relationships, beauty, and malaise in a burning world.

LaBrie’s collection comprises four parts, corresponding to Carl Jung’s theory of psychological growth, depicted as alchemical stages: nigredo (ego death), albedo (psychological rebirth), citrinitas (the dawning of wisdom), and rubedo (enlightenment).The preface introduces LaBrie’s background as a psychologist, while warning readers against interpreting the narrative “I” in the poems as autobiographical. He then playfully undercuts his assertion: “sometimes it is [me], but who cares?” The speakers struggle with depression and painful memories, giving the collection a defeated but defiant tone. The central theme of spiritual growth is clearest in “Days of Telomeres,” in which the speaker considers various psychological stages. “Days of Telomeres” and elsewhere often depict psychological wounds, with “Middle school monstrosities” a natural progression after the “soft pranked meanness” of childhood. LaBrie’s work also suggests society can make people sick. The anti-capitalist “Deconstruction” decries a “Money Man” who pulses with “need need need.” Various entries condemn economies based on supply and demand and observe the ways in which environmental damage eats at the collective psyche, resulting in ongoing, widespread violence. As a psychotherapist, LaBrie regularly discusses “monsters” with his clients, conversations that leave him “seething [with] useless vigilantism.” The most memorable entries are those that question poetry as a form, with “Qualitative Data Collected at Parnassus” a particular standout.

LaBrie’s preface states his work has a “disparate nature.” Readers, however, will find that most of the collection maintains the dark themes of the “Nigredo” section—familial loss, shame, and isolation. LaBrie longs for “the carelessness of the less self-aware” alluded to in “Self Help,” but the majority of his poems look inward. Readers may find that the first three sections blur together thematically, even in poems with snappier line breaks in the agitated “Tug” and “Self-Assessment to the HR Manager.” LaBrie shines when injecting moments of optimism into the grim subject matter. In “Suspension,” for instance, he recalls: “A psychologist once told me that hope / is the mechanism of the helpless child” and demands: “Why not?…Why not hope?” By this moving poem’s close, the speaker regresses to “awaken young,” as if meeting—and perhaps healing—his younger self could help reframe his current worldview. All the poems are in free verse, which lends a conversational tone to the “quiet rage” in the opening “Nigredo” section. The anger eventually simmers into acceptance in the final section, “Rubedo,” where LaBrie steps outside past grievance toward an interconnected future. “Between” successfully, if a little unoriginally, unites the extended metaphor of a petal’s growth and decay with the collection’s overarching framework of cyclical alchemy. In just seven lines, this poem is one of the most lyrical, with the “hue of renewal” in nature a source of comfort. Other gentle moments that give readers pause to enjoy can be seen in “Ferenczi’s Cat” through the call and response of six stanzas; a relationship is built based on the “returned gesture” of physical touch with a friend’s pet. Each instance of connection in the “Rubedo” section makes this challenging collection worth completing.

A thorny, probing, and occasionally moving collection.