Bright Stain

https: //rhinopoetry.org/reviews/bright-stain-by-francesca-bell-reviewed-by-sherry-smith From Bell, a gritty poetry debut that examines the power and perils of womanhood, sex, and religion. Bell finds beauty and horror in the tiny moments of life and turns them into art. Besos sensually recalls a first kiss with a boy who is later brutally beaten. The speaker unpacks the mortifying experience of developing breasts at age 14 but soon discovers how they make young men quake in In Plain Sight. In Narrow Openings, the speaker admits she doesn't like her lover and longs to argue with him; instead, she goes for a walk, delighting in the idea of him pacing / the closed rooms, stupid and lovely. The author doesn't shy away from tough or taboo subjects; With a Little Education examines the life of a gigolo, and The Curator is a visceral recounting of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's monstrosities. The work is entirely unsentimental, from a remembrance of an unimpressive paramour to a poem in which the poet plays with excuses used by football players accused of sexual assault. Several unflinching looks at the body include a birth poem so gruesome it reads precariously close to murder, and Guilt Tastes Like Summer finds a 4-year-old wondering if sunburn is her penance for sexual desire. Womanhood and religion are interwoven here. Unclasping a bra is a relief like prayer, while menstruation is the reminder / of the gash God made in me. The imagery is incisive and unique: Boys' voices creaked like screen doors ; spent lovers are rubble, still and separate ; and a tongue leapt / like an animal from its cave. This collection is not for the faint of heart, however; rape, abortion, and child sexual abuse by men of the cloth are all par for the course. And in In Persona Christi, she compares fellatio to the Eucharist. A penetrating collection of ruthless, unapologetic poetry --Kirkus Reviews Francesca Bell's poems are fierce and tender, passionate, compassionate, disturbing and delightful. Wide-ranging, finely-honed, smart and surprising, Bright Stain is a compelling debut collection! Ellen Bass How deeply gratifying to see Francesca Bell's electric, erotic and completely ravishing debut collection, Bright Stain, at last in the world. For the past ten years she has been writing some of the most charged, subtle and yet devastating poems in American poetry. Many of these dramatic vignettes are laced with a rare sexual candor and a whip-smart emotional intelligence. Bright Stain is one of the most darkly elegant and luminous books of recent years; it is, in all ways, truly a wonder. --David St. John