Chamber after Chamber
Chamber after Chamber is about what fractures, fixes, and refills the hearts of two girls as they grow into women. A loose narrative in three sections, the poems follow a speaker and her cousin through their hardscrabble, backwoods childhood to their separation—both physical and emotional—as adults. From the make-believe apocalypses and cut-and-paste valentines of elementary school to the stadium-seating classrooms and multiplexes of southern China, our speaker tries to leave the shame and dysfunction of her family behind. In China, she begins to see America—and herself—clearly for the first time, and in doing so discovers that both her cousin and her country are inextricably woven into
[her body] part that never sleeps the blood
and chambered meat that’s like a rock squeezed
in a fist rapping its knuckles
on the sweet door of the body.
‘Saara Myrene Raappana's poetry embodies a vast and transcendent array of subtle artfulness in the creative application of metered verse, exceeding any modern poet whose work I've encountered.’—Gordon Kippola
‘With invigorating strength and song, this gorgeous first book shows us that we are animals—hungry, driven, crafty, tender, and violent, we surprise ourselves. Saara Myrene Raappanna transmits to readers the textures of land, lake, and sky: ‘A blizzard switched the ground / for clouds and made the county blind,’ begins ‘Elegy with Lake Effect.’ Chamber after Chamber is alive with thunder, stinging insects, mud, animal blood, and human sweat; the electric influence of Lake Superior is felt throughout. This cunning, graceful speaker elucidates one of life’s most dazzling contradictions: that the heart—'the part that never sleeps’—is at once spirit and flesh, ‘light’ and ‘meat’.’—Emily Hunt, author of Company
Born and raised in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, SAARA MYRENE RAAPPANA served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Southern China before moving to southwest Minnesota. Author of two chapbooks, she has published poems in journals and anthologies. She has received grants and scholarships from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council, and the Sewanee Writers' Conference.
I
When I say heart
Heart of Lion, Heart of Light
Once upon America
Spawning Season
When I say heart
Flood Coming
Selfie as Elly the Doll
Smoke
Winter Correspondence
Superman and Batman Sleepover
Little Red and Little Red
When I say heart
we carved our names
II
All I know of white
When I say heart I mean
Paradise by the Paulding Light
Home Perm
Canticle of Waitresses, Waiting
A Moth
When I say heart I mean
After the Funeral, Aunt Sally Tells a Story We’ve Never Heard Before
The wolf in the trailer,
Torch
Confession of the Lessee
When I say heart I mean
My Brush
Psalm with Pleather Teddy Bears
In the Women’s Hospital
III
When I write heart I mean
Elegy with Lake Effect
In Favor of Defenestration
Lake Astronomy
Letter to My Teenaged Self: You Are a House, You Are a Hammer, You’re the Momentum of the Nail
When I say thumping mitral floor I mean
Heroic Origin
Selfie as What Breaks
In the Absence of Sparrows, I Learned to Stop Hearing Sparrows
Happily Ever After
Whenever I say heart I mean
