Moxley’s latest book of poems is The Line. Its prose poems seem to tell the story of a creative mind in despair, a dark night. Like The Middle Room, its narrative drive is unstoppable. The strength of the book is in its accumulation of emotional impact, not in single poems, but I’ll get you started with the opener:
The State
However much we wish it so, everything does not change in a moment. The sedative present, tugging, sucking, and many-voiced, timelessly freights the mind. There will be no more marking of days. Under your right arm, a memory crutch, under your left, the future, a failure kicked out upon waking. But as punishment you can still dream. A nursing infant, the birds you have killed, a hill so steep your ascent of it leaves your lover struggling beneath you. Each night in houses you can never go back to you leave your promise behind.
For someone who knows Moxley’s previous books of poetry, what first stuns about The Line is the prose and the plainness of syntax. But no matter the vehicle, when Moxley makes an assertion, you believe it; when she embarks on a train of thought, you get on board too. Her writing has an authority and fluency and wisdom that make me eager to see where she’s going next and willing to follow anywhere. I’d love a sequel to The Middle Room, a swerve into another variation on her verse.