鈥淚f everyone decided to call themselves a girl / that word would stop.鈥 In this award-winning volume of authoritative and assertive poems, Sarah Vap embarks on an emotional journey to the land of America鈥檚 female children. Questioning, contradicting, radically and restlessly demanding acceptance, she searches for a way to move from serious girlhood to womanly love. Demonstrating the seriousness of female childhood鈥攚hich is as dangerous and profound as war, economics, and history, that is, as manhood, in her view鈥擵ap reveals the extremes of self-doubt and self-righteousness inherent in being a contemporary American girl.
鈥淲hen we鈥檙e overcome / by everything we think we love鈥攖hen by morning / we鈥檙e adults.鈥 Just as the oil of American spikenard may provide relief from childhood, so does Sarah Vap provide the kind of holy and extravagant love and honor that can relieve the growing pains of 鈥渆veryone鈥檚 little girl.鈥
Push-off Sideways
Pan of crayons and candles, trusting in them
the solidarity. Or in her鈥攕he鈥檚 free
not to care any longer. To put out pumpkins
for the bear. But which lover was it
kissed her in his sleep? Put her in a river
to cool down. There鈥檚 a reduceless
feeling: that womankind
dropped her memory. That six folded-around interstates
make a city鈥檚 red chakra and I鈥檓 sorry it wasn鈥檛 me
dropped since she touched the chair of anger that shares a wall
with the ground of bearings. Dyslexia makes her holy ghost
polyglot. In the history of disclosures
we think we鈥檙e all stretched out next to her,
but there she goes calling kitty kitty
at the on-ramp.
鈥淪arah Vap鈥檚 poems are stunningly voiced, bristling with drive and energy. Her rich and inhabited landscapes thrive on her tough, relentlessly probing, questioning, and wide-ranging diction. American Spikenard is like one long poem, a poet鈥檚 coming to terms with identity and history in a quest to be acknowledged for exactly who she is.鈥濃擨ra Sadoff, author, Barter
鈥淔or those ready to explore the glitter and scars of girlhood, Sarah Vap鈥檚 first book is 鈥榮aying, for the sake of integrity, the dearest things.鈥 Here, in poems in which the ancestors are often made of glass, we find shattered, luminous bedtime stories steeped in vulnerability. At turns sly and direct, American Spikenard summons ghosts and dolls, dogs and ponies, the snotty baby Jesus and holy birthday parties. A beautiful, weird collection that holds the promise of intimacy and the provocation of mystery.鈥 鈥擜rielle Greenberg, author, My Kafka Century
