Out of Order reviewed by Able Muse

A lovely and in-depth review of Alexis Sears’s debut collection, Out of Order, appeared in Able Muse‘s newest issue. Thanks to reviewer Brooke Clark for their generous words on the book:

The recurrence of formal poetry, and in particular the use of forms that are so heavy on repetition (and so demanding on the poet’s art that one might almost call them punitive), suggests that there is no moving on from the past or the questions of one’s own identity. Form exerts a gravitational pull that can’t be evaded, but draws the poet back over and over again just as the material of her own past draws her back. The book is actually a powerful portrait of formal poetry as something approaching a mental and emotional prison, where nothing can be resolved because everything is always repeated. The past can’t be escaped, and the idea that it can is just a fantasy we use to fool ourselves. We are always tied to it, reliving it, repeating it, inescapably entangled in it like a poet in an unforgiving rhyme scheme.

To read the full review, please visit Able Muse‘s website.