Ultraviolet of the Genuine

Hannah Brooks-Motl

Hannah Brooks-Motl’s fourth collection of poems, Ultraviolet of the Genuine, is an expansive record of time and thought, weaving together philosophy, science, theology, dreams, grief, literary theory, criticism, history, and ideas of utopia—becoming a book that continuously surprises and is nearly impossible to categorize. Engaging with centuries of poetic tradition, Ultraviolet of the Genuine leaves room for the development of everything, abstract and alive, even giving ants the spotlight in one long poem. These poems propose a new metaphysics, weighing everyday moments wherein the elusive and ultraviolet radiate. Again, Brooks-Motl challenges the ways we read poetry, not by opting for either the head or the heart, but by choosing both.

'"[T]he poem / should be a world, a real world” writes Brooks-Motl. Ultraviolet of the
Genuine is a thrilling poetic search for utopian ants under real rocks. Brooks-Motl’s
poems snake from “mouth to anus” through a python of philosophical and aesthetic
questions in her attempt to grapple with the allure and limits of “ecstatic personal
austerities.” This is intellectual poetry of the highest order bent on bringing us the news
from nowhere.' – Jennifer Moxley

'It starts with blueberries and it ends with quartz and heaven. In between it’s all reeling from tender adventure, cutting a path through bird cannons and scurfpea. Our poet has a literary injury. She attends to the ants, to the ticks and the weeds. Goethe said that blue shadows on snow are a demanded colour, produced by the eye itself. Somewhere Marianne Moore swishes her cape, tilts her tricorner cap, stares directly at the sun. It’s a mortal world, and we know after all that what looks like a vase can also be an urn. Mystic concentration/lyric dispersal: Hannah Brooks-Motl makes a serious book.' – Luke Roberts