9781961897311_

Willow Hammer is a consummate lyric of the aftermath. In his fifth book, Patrick Donnelly has his face pressed against the eyepiece as he looks directly at the past, collecting poems that fan out kaleidoscopically from a buried memory a crime one family member committed upon another.

Upon learning that his stepfather assaulted his sister, Donnelly traces the consequences of ignorance, denial, bargaining, complicity, and finally revelation that reverberated through his and his loved ones lives for five decades after the abuse. The knowledge of this catalyzing violation not only recontextualizes the siblings shared history but inflects the present as Donnelly revisits the development of his own sexuality, remembers his escape from home into academia, and recognizes analogues of his sisters abuse in the literary canon. Singing a Byrd Mass after a night at the bathhouse, the poet characterizes the tenor and bass as two wrestling saints, lowest of the four voices / once I thought I saw them kiss each others faces. Or, presenting The Tale of Genji from a young brides perspective, Donnelly depicts Murasaki who fled out the back of her own home and hid in the scented hollow of a juniper as his sister might have been at 14.

And that recovering glimpses of his sisters unknowable interiority, reckoning with the unbearable but necessary truth is this books difficult and endless work. In the wake of a particular kind of harm, Willow Hammer seems to suggest, justice is a disingenuous concept but that doesnt preclude acknowledgement and healing. Now documents the poets arrival at this compromise: I remember my / little sister that was, / little willow of glass / upon whom he laid / his hammer hands. There is no revocation of the hands, but the radical possibilities of Donnellys lyrics refuse to let their shadow obscure his sisters memory.

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Willow Hammer is a consummate lyric of the aftermath. In his fifth book, Patrick Donnelly has his face pressed against the eyepiece as he looks unsparingly at the past, generating a sequence of poems that fans out kaleidoscopically upon learning, twenty years afterward, that his stepfather assaulted his sister.

In response to this crime, Donnelly traces the consequences of ignorance, denial, bargaining, complicity, and finally revelation that reverberated through his and his loved ones lives for five decades. His discovery of this catalyzing violation not only recontextualizes the siblings shared history, but inflects the present asfinding analogues of his sisters abuse in the classical canonhe remembers his escape from home into spiritual disciplines and the study of dead languages. Revisiting the evolution of his own sexuality, he remembers singing a Byrd Mass after a night at a gay bathhouse, characterizing the tenor and bass as two wrestling saints, lowest of the four voices / once I thought I saw them kiss each others faces.

And thatrecovering glimpses of his sisters unknowable interiority, reckoning with a truth that is unbearable and inescapableis this books difficult and endless work. In the wake of a particular kind of harm, Willow Hammer seems to suggest, justice may be a wishful conceptbut that doesnt preclude testimony and salvage. Now documents the poets arrival at this compromise: I remember my / little sister that was, / little willow of glass / upon whom he laid / his hammer hands. There is no revocation of the hands, but with tenderness, wit, and fury, Donnellys lyrics refuse to let their shadow obscure his sisters recovery of her own agency.

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Willow Hammer

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