Score and Bone

The two halves of Score and Bone form either side of a mobius strip, two sides of a ribbon of perception and self-observation. As in the first poem, “ Score,” with its gorgeously autonomous and slightly surreal images, the poems in the book’ s eponymous first half have a filmic quality, as if directed and observed by an omnipotent narrator-self. The second half is made up of experiences, objects, and “ The Treachery of Objects… ” The poet observes herself recovering from major surgery, first as if on film, daily rushes, with quick cuts, and then she feels as the experience deeply means— “ Isolate the pain, the size of a buffalo nickel” — staring steadily into the scar that is both companion and abyss. This is a deft, lovely, sometimes whimsical, poem-journal of recovery. -Joyce Jenkins