Escape to Nowhere

In Flower Conroys debut collection of poems, she writes, some babies are relieved to be born, freed from their claustrophobic sleeping bags, heralding the Bildungsroman in verse this book will be. Told with pith, wit, and full of desire and heat, these poems seek to understand and forgive. In the wildly self-aware poem, EVELYNS BEDROOM WHILE EVELYN WATCHED TV & ATE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE DOUGH ICE CREAM OUT OF THE CONTAINER , Conroys speaker says, Upset? I wasn t upset. I was hysterical./ Inconsolable. Overly emotional. Wrecked. //Then I got over it, and when in the final poem, Only Idiots Get Tattoos, she writes, My favorite tattoos/ the one on the back of my neck in memory of my fathers/ passing: an upturned horseshoe, carried up, by wings we know how hard won, how complex the journey has been, and, too, that the next leg of the poets journey has only just begun. Conroys searing, musically charged poems, dirty, hopeful, and sometimes cuttingly funny, will please and illumine with singular muscularity and a dash of black mascara. --Laura McCullough