RAIN/DWELLER
Moon Path Press, 2023
by Risa Denenberg
reviewed by Mary Ellen Talley
Duende and imagery! Risa Denenberg’s newest collection, “Rain / Dweller,” travels from the “uncontrolled burn of adolescence” to acknowledge that “I’m old now, and / still haven’t saved the planet” as in her poem “I Am Forest Fire.”
But she quickly softens disillusionment with self-deprecating jest, as “Apocalypse Selfie,” announces, “We have failed the future. / Our breasts are the drooping ice shelves of Antarctica.”
Mid-collection, nineteen untitled linked sonnets in “Posthuman” immerse us in concern for the earth. The twelfth sonnet beseeches “I pray earth will be pleased at our exodus” while the poem reflects, “What you grasp for / at end-times hangs on your faith like a fish / on a hook.” Denenberg implies despair but there are threads to cling to, as when she begins sonnet three with mention of her cat, “Everything I know of love, I learned from Tyg.”
Although both spiritual and ecopoetic, Denenberg’s poems are not religious. Sonnet thirteen begins, “The clouds know there is no heaven, / but are too wise to preach.” As fog lifting off Port Townsend makes it difficult to see scenery, the speaker also feels fogged in, “I tune out the news, / listen instead to the climate moaning in the / wind.”
Her titles are evocative. Many poems dwell in personal pain. The poem, “I Reside in the House of Her Narrative,” begins “Don’t ask me about my mother. / Don’t tell me to lean towards joy.” It ends, “Such a blessing / the dead do not speak.”
Some poems refer to the 1980s AIDS epidemic. A title can stand in for narrative, as in the prose poem, “ER Doc Dies in Husband’s Arms.” Sometimes, lines can encompass history, as does this one from the same poem, “City where my friends / died in droves in the nineties.”
Denenberg is a poet and co-founder of the lesbian Headmistress Press based in Sequim, a rainy corner of Washington state. She is also a health professional who channels compassion in her poems. “The Fragrance of Crushed Fruit” begins with the matter-of-fact declaration, “Another patient died today,” moves forward into “My litany of corpses—dare I count them?” and on toward closure with such disarming beauty that the reader is lifted from any sense of melancholy:
Oh death: walking past you, so often I look the other way,
ask the buried to forgive the inelegant clatter of my steps,
beg sunflowers in the field to hide their yellow faces.
Much as some of her work dwells in personal despair, Denenberg’s final poem, “Selfie With Ineffable Joy,” reverberates with continuity:
I want to take a chance. Be ineffable.
Steep in secret moments of joy. Some nights,
the sky vault yawns like a sleepy child,
the moon’s zipper comes undone,
her bra strap loosens,
and a divine fragrance permeates the dusk.
Don’t miss RAIN / DWELLER. The poems invoke an honest reckoning with self and the planet we share.
Purchase your copy here.
But she quickly softens disillusionment with self-deprecating jest, as “Apocalypse Selfie,” announces, “We have failed the future. / Our breasts are the drooping ice shelves of Antarctica.”
Mid-collection, nineteen untitled linked sonnets in “Posthuman” immerse us in concern for the earth. The twelfth sonnet beseeches “I pray earth will be pleased at our exodus” while the poem reflects, “What you grasp for / at end-times hangs on your faith like a fish / on a hook.” Denenberg implies despair but there are threads to cling to, as when she begins sonnet three with mention of her cat, “Everything I know of love, I learned from Tyg.”
Although both spiritual and ecopoetic, Denenberg’s poems are not religious. Sonnet thirteen begins, “The clouds know there is no heaven, / but are too wise to preach.” As fog lifting off Port Townsend makes it difficult to see scenery, the speaker also feels fogged in, “I tune out the news, / listen instead to the climate moaning in the / wind.”
Her titles are evocative. Many poems dwell in personal pain. The poem, “I Reside in the House of Her Narrative,” begins “Don’t ask me about my mother. / Don’t tell me to lean towards joy.” It ends, “Such a blessing / the dead do not speak.”
Some poems refer to the 1980s AIDS epidemic. A title can stand in for narrative, as in the prose poem, “ER Doc Dies in Husband’s Arms.” Sometimes, lines can encompass history, as does this one from the same poem, “City where my friends / died in droves in the nineties.”
Denenberg is a poet and co-founder of the lesbian Headmistress Press based in Sequim, a rainy corner of Washington state. She is also a health professional who channels compassion in her poems. “The Fragrance of Crushed Fruit” begins with the matter-of-fact declaration, “Another patient died today,” moves forward into “My litany of corpses—dare I count them?” and on toward closure with such disarming beauty that the reader is lifted from any sense of melancholy:
Oh death: walking past you, so often I look the other way,
ask the buried to forgive the inelegant clatter of my steps,
beg sunflowers in the field to hide their yellow faces.
Much as some of her work dwells in personal despair, Denenberg’s final poem, “Selfie With Ineffable Joy,” reverberates with continuity:
I want to take a chance. Be ineffable.
Steep in secret moments of joy. Some nights,
the sky vault yawns like a sleepy child,
the moon’s zipper comes undone,
her bra strap loosens,
and a divine fragrance permeates the dusk.
Don’t miss RAIN / DWELLER. The poems invoke an honest reckoning with self and the planet we share.
Purchase your copy here.
Risa Denenberg lives on the Olympic peninsula in Washington state where she works as a nurse practitioner. She is a co-founder of Headmistress Press; curator at The Poetry Café Online; and the Reviews Editor at River Mouth Review. Her most recent publications include the full-length poetry collection, slight faith(MoonPath Press, 2018) and the chapbook, Posthuman, finalist in the Floating Bridge 2020 chapbook competition. A new collection, Rain Dweller is forthcoming from MoonPath Press in 2023.
Mary Ellen Talley’s book reviews appear online and in print journals such as Compulsive Reader, Asheville Poetry Review, Crab Creek Review, and Sugar House Review. Her poems have appeared widely in journals, such as Raven Chronicles, Gyroscope, and Banshee, as well as in multiple anthologies. A chapbook, “Postcards from the Lilac City,” was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.
Mary Ellen Talley’s book reviews appear online and in print journals such as Compulsive Reader, Asheville Poetry Review, Crab Creek Review, and Sugar House Review. Her poems have appeared widely in journals, such as Raven Chronicles, Gyroscope, and Banshee, as well as in multiple anthologies. A chapbook, “Postcards from the Lilac City,” was published by Finishing Line Press in 2020.