The Rose
The Rose
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Ariana Reines
A body concealing its heart’s desire
Has a certain texture
A tang or an edge if you will
That the openhearted cannot match
And when exactly does the deceitful
Heart open? At climax.
– from 'The Hanged Man'
Drawing on the history of 'romance' as the troubadours knew it and the titular flower’s ancient allegories for sexuality and mystery, Reines plunges into feminine archetypes to explore masculine pain: "I have always liked helpless / & terrible men because they break my mind." In these poems, inherited ideologies of gender performance are replaced with bold vulnerability: paradoxes of power and surrender transmute the speaker’s understanding of suffering, desire, and the soul.
The voice in The Rose is wry and bare, approaching the connection between erotic love and spirituality with humor. Investigating war, maternity, violent sensuality, and the role of language in magical acts, Reines is unafraid to uncover the "secret / & terrible shovelings / Of love," and the result is a bloody and pulsing, sexy and unabashed bloom.
'Violence’s iridescent glee hammers down. Sorrow is sorrow. Heterosexual love is seriously interrogated. The mother is dead. The Rose’s exquisite linguistic rendering, gushes wildly with a ferocity (and sometimes a painful, necessary candor).... I will be reading this book for the rest of my life.' – Dawn Lundy Martin
'Thrilling and harrowing, The Rose explores the contours of something essential, diving deep into pain and complexity and describing them in the most factual way. . . . Focused, intense The Rose offers a trail that leads, if not to madness, to something that goes beyond rational sense. It’s a great book.' – Chris Kraus
