[05/14/24] Morrison, Rusty: Risk

Black Ocean, paperback

Publication Date: May 14th, 2024

Publisher Marketing: From the co-publisher of acclaimed poetry press Omnidawn, Risk engages directly with limitations, both those that structure the literal form of the poems and literary form and those that are both unavoidable and self-inflicted. In Risk, award-winning poet Rusty Morisson uses a constraining form of seven-syllable segments with breaks between to explore questions of limitation. In these poems, she is not just writing about constraints, but living inside and seeing how to manage them. In this way, the speaker of these poems actively experiences limitations as event, not aftermath. Drawing on the idea of philosopher and critic Hélène Cixous who writes that "the border makes up the homeland, it prohibits and gives passage in the same stroke," in Risk Morrison aims where the border and framings she uses offer understanding and where boundaries should be pushed against and passed beyond, as frightening as that might be.