Coriolis (eBook)

The Coriolis effect-from which A. D. Lauren-Abunassar's hyperkinetic debut collection borrows its title-describes a force that deflects a mass off course. This concept is at play both formally and psychically in Coriolis, recognized in Leila Chatti's Foreword as "e;a book of wanting, of lack, absence, disintegration, opacity, and yearning. . . . 'If only I could cut out the part of me shaped like wanting,' writes Lauren-Abunassar. At times, the thing wanted for is love. Other times: family, certainty, belonging, home, safety, wellness, wholeness, or simply for a thing to be clean. Always, these poems reveal the shape of the want by illuminating its outline."e; Perhaps the speaker of these poems wants most of all to be seen, despite her reflex to deflect when she discloses a shame or trauma, often by depositing the self-revelation within rapid, teeming strings of thought. Yet as much as this speaker may be an introvert in life-"e;Every time someone says my name it surprises me"e;; "e;Because I am lonely, I am always shying away from the mirror"e;; "e;Today I woke up feeling / like an already said thing"e;-many of her utterances are exuberantly uninhibited. "e;Small trees live inside me,"e; Lauren-Abunassar admits passingly in one poem. And in another: "e;When I dream of myself, my mouth / blooms many hands. They reach in all / shapes and directions."e;