LeBeau, Marcia: A CURIOUS HUNGER

Broadstone Books, paperback

Publication Date: April 30, 2024

Publisher Marketing: In the title poem of her debut collection, Marcia LeBeau admits that she wants to be "as popular as a spoon," that ubiquitous bit of cutlery always first to empty out of the drawer, the one guaranteed to "cause a stir" (a nice example of her cleverness with language). She chooses Team Spoon most of all for "the beauty / of the tool" and for the "Evidence of the artist, the dreamer, the crazy cook— / the one who understands our curious hunger." LeBeau is all those things, who not only understands our (sometimes not quite licit) hungers, but is not afraid to express them, unflinchingly. She warns of "Temptation" in the poem that inspires the octopus on her cover, invoking the image of a stuffed animal in "the claw machine at the mall" as metaphor both for what is "impossible" but also, if attained, just possibly "a grotesqueness beyond your tar dark / dreams." Even so, we cannot escape the impulse to "carry the impossible home." And that, she tells us throughout this forthright volume, is our greatest hunger: for curiosity itself, "the way we wanted everything."