{"id":897,"date":"2022-11-09T15:40:17","date_gmt":"2022-11-09T20:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/?p=897"},"modified":"2025-02-22T09:47:56","modified_gmt":"2025-02-22T14:47:56","slug":"poetry-review-unholy-heart-by-grace-bauer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/poetry-review-unholy-heart-by-grace-bauer\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Unholy Heart by Grace Bauer No. 5"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Unholy Heart: New and Selected Poems<\/em> by Grace Bauer. The Backwaters Press: An Imprint of the University of Nebraska Press. 2021. 169 pages. $19.95. Paperback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New and selected poetry collections can sometimes be cumbersome when approaching any poet to experience their work. I always find that\u2019s because we must figure out where to begin. With Unholy Heart: New and Selected Poems<\/em> by Grace Bauer, it\u2019s best to start at the beginning and move actively to the end. This collection surveys the body of Bauer\u2019s work from early poems to new poems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEve Recollecting the Garden\u201d opens this volume of poetry as a meditation on the creation story. During my reading of Bauer\u2019s collection, I kept returning to this Edenic exploration of Eve\u2019s stolen voice, \u201cDolphin, Starling, Antelope<\/em> \/ were syllables you stole \/ from me\u2026\u201d (3). Presumably speaking to Adam, Eve accuses him of literally stealing her words. Bauer gives Eve the voice many creation stories never seem to do and allows her space in which Eve\u2019s truth is finally spoken. Thematically, Bauer\u2019s opening poem resonates as true today as it had when it was first published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \u201cUpdate on Emily,\u201d the closing poem in this collection, Bauer\u2019s voice becomes much softer and contemplative. Bauer slows down and works through the puzzling she presents to us. The poem opens with what could be taken as a harsh statement of inevitability, \u201cBecause Death stops for everyone \/ and is rarely ever kind, \/ she writes her letters to the world\u2013\u2013 \u201d (166). The poem moves quickly into a rumination on the necessity of what it means to live a life. For the speaker, it\u2019s the act of writing letters. However, the poem asks whether the letters will be important to Emily, or for the world. Bauer eventually comes to the conclusion-less realization that we end up the same either way because the letters exist at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the inverted mirror between the urgency of\u00a0creation\u00a0in the opening poem\u00a0\u201cEve Recollecting the Garden\u201d\u00a0and the quiet contemplation of\u00a0death\u00a0in\u00a0the final poem\u00a0\u201cUpdate on Emily,\u201d Bauer\u00a0bookends\u00a0us in waiting.\u00a0Unholy Heart: New and Selected Poems<\/em>\u00a0is a collection of\u00a0believing that\u00a0spans\u00a0a career recording Bauer as a needed voice in poetry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Tyler Michael Jacobs, MAR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unholy Heart: New and Selected Poems by Grace Bauer. The Backwaters Press: An Imprint of the University of Nebraska Press. 2021.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,15],"tags":[76,77,29,30,78,79],"class_list":["post-897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-poetry","tag-grace-bauer","tag-new-and-selected","tag-poetry","tag-review","tag-unholy-heart","tag-university-of-nebraska-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=897"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1664,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions\/1664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}