Amber Nelson

In Anima: Urgency Amber Nelson

Poetry. Amber Nelson's distinct and densely sounded lyrics seem at first to come from another age, to rhyme and pun with another language. But they shoot out 'bow and error' in surprising ways, and Nelson finds life aplenty in her 'wild conservation/of incestuous history.' Fulfilling the urgency that the title promises, this poetry draws the reader into an ethos that excavates all manner of contemporary sin (and does so with an assured and sexy frisson where 'sounds endowed with/joints & spines--connect/ each to each'). For those who remain 'hopeful they will not cede/ but seed a verse, ' IN ANIMA: URGENCY calls us to lean forward and listen.--Elizabeth Robinson

These tiny shards of verse will cut and awe you. They will grow enormous before you. They will confound you, alarm you, sooth you, and reflect you perfectly. They will reveal a poet completely original among her contemporaries. A poet I look forward to reading for many, many years to come. Prepare yourself! This is only the beginning of what promises to be an astonishing career of light and song!--Corey Zeller

Flirtatious landscapes, sensualizing verbs, an Edenside. Nelson is the blood June heiress to Emily Dickinson and Graham Foust's wordbullets, she shrinks her suns' syntax to petit fours without diluting any of their furious cosmos. ANIMA is strummed by an Orphic-ette harp, sung by a siren-sly tongue, and pushed by heart fragments through the pupils of barely dry eyes. Reading Nelson's linguistically gifted organs is a rare and plush pleasure.--Daniela Olszewska

A local vocal event of the greater metro stream. Amber Nelson's work echoes Stein, Creeley, Heraclitus, Sappho, and Cixous. The echoes argue over beer and tacos in the moonlight, but these aren't cover songs. Thought in the act of mining nouns, Nelson's poems get us through.--Michael Sikkema