Attractively bound in a translucent green-paper cover and featuring several nicely ambiguous black-and-white photographs, this is nonetheless just another annoying collection of too-personal poems about Being a Woman and Having Feelings. Okay, that’s too harsh. Sometimes, Marchand’s imagery is striking. She has a way of stringing together lists of unrelated nouns that produces a pleasantly dreamy effect. But too many of these poems read like personal shorthand for thoughts and experiences that the reader isn’t really expected to understand: “it began with a small point in space/and moved to/cabbages.” Sheesh. (Wendy Banks)
chapbook, 45 pages, $8 US, Amanda Marchand, Glass Eye Press, San Francisco