How to Know the Flowers
by Jessica Smith (Veliz Books, 2019)
Reviewed by Kim Jacobs-Beck
The more we hear from those who have been victims of sexual violence or harassment, the better. Art allows us to empathize with first-person testimonials, so that we are able to honor and empathize with someone’s experience with an intimate form of oppression. Jessica Smith’s book, How to Know the Flowers, tells such a tale, but it focuses on the emotional aftermath of both betrayal and support from other women. In this way, Smith’s story is one of healing and moving forward, of creativity as a balm for pain, and of emerging with a sense of wholeness.
Smith is an experimental poet interested in the non- linear “line” of poetry, and clearly influenced by Charles Olson’s projective verse. Each page of the book is structured into clusters of words and phrases that can be read across or down: “down the stone path/fear of being see his bike wait- ing for me/alone sense him lurking in the stacks looking for a book.” This method provides subtle shifts in meaning on multiple readings; this example could be read as “down the stone path/fear of being alone” on one reading, then “down the stone path/see his bike waiting for me/sense him lurking in the stacks looking for a book.” As Smith explains in her introduction, “In writing fragmented narratives that do not necessarily move linearly across and down the page, I hope to preserve some of the sense that memories are shimmery, unreliable, scattered things.”
The trauma here is in the betrayal of the narrator’s colleagues, who would not support her claim of sexual harassment and punish the harasser. Instead, she leaves a job she loves and takes refuge in art through the creation of natural dyes derived from plants and their application to different fabrics. The creation of natural dyes—a folk tradition in the textile crafts—serves as meditation because it requires focus and attention to detail. Like an herbalist, healer, or practitioner of magic, the narrator creates something new from her grief and trauma, so that making something, especially with one’s hands, becomes a kind of therapy.
Organized primarily in daybook fashion, the poems show us that the passage of time is a necessary part of healing; over four months, the narrator lives her life, raises her child, and finds a way through her trauma. In the final section of the book, a young friend and former student, Anna, keeps her company while she creates dyes. Smith uses the phrase “Anna brings” sixteen times in the final section of the book, making Anna into a symbol of the ways women have traditionally comforted each other: “Anna brings gray kitten Pan//drown//and pan of blueberry pie.” The relationship is in some ways reciprocal, as the narrator sets an example to the younger Anna. Smith links the traditionally feminine craft of making dyes and using them on fabric with women’s friendships; often, women of the past worked communally on such tasks, likely to speed the process as well as to socialize. In doing so, they created community.
In the end, textile dying becomes a metaphor for creativity, and particularly for writing, as a way of meditating upon and ultimately releasing trauma. Smith’s book serves as a step on that path. Her non-linear style works in perfect sync with trauma and recovery; psychology tells us that memory of trauma is patchy and clouded by the emotional flooding. Here, it is clear that the trauma comes nearly as much from the betrayal by her boss and coworkers, through their unwillingness to support her, as it does from the original harassment itself. Smith’s formal choices also recall the recursive structure of traditional women’s work; there is always more work to do be done, more cloth to dye, more cook- ing, more cleaning, more sewing. The thematic melding of the contemporary moment, where women are bravely speaking out about sexual violence of all kinds, with an old-fashioned craft also works well with the non-linear form, creating a winding route that links women’s lives then and now.
Smith is an experimental poet interested in the non- linear “line” of poetry, and clearly influenced by Charles Olson’s projective verse. Each page of the book is structured into clusters of words and phrases that can be read across or down: “down the stone path/fear of being see his bike wait- ing for me/alone sense him lurking in the stacks looking for a book.” This method provides subtle shifts in meaning on multiple readings; this example could be read as “down the stone path/fear of being alone” on one reading, then “down the stone path/see his bike waiting for me/sense him lurking in the stacks looking for a book.” As Smith explains in her introduction, “In writing fragmented narratives that do not necessarily move linearly across and down the page, I hope to preserve some of the sense that memories are shimmery, unreliable, scattered things.”
The trauma here is in the betrayal of the narrator’s colleagues, who would not support her claim of sexual harassment and punish the harasser. Instead, she leaves a job she loves and takes refuge in art through the creation of natural dyes derived from plants and their application to different fabrics. The creation of natural dyes—a folk tradition in the textile crafts—serves as meditation because it requires focus and attention to detail. Like an herbalist, healer, or practitioner of magic, the narrator creates something new from her grief and trauma, so that making something, especially with one’s hands, becomes a kind of therapy.
Organized primarily in daybook fashion, the poems show us that the passage of time is a necessary part of healing; over four months, the narrator lives her life, raises her child, and finds a way through her trauma. In the final section of the book, a young friend and former student, Anna, keeps her company while she creates dyes. Smith uses the phrase “Anna brings” sixteen times in the final section of the book, making Anna into a symbol of the ways women have traditionally comforted each other: “Anna brings gray kitten Pan//drown//and pan of blueberry pie.” The relationship is in some ways reciprocal, as the narrator sets an example to the younger Anna. Smith links the traditionally feminine craft of making dyes and using them on fabric with women’s friendships; often, women of the past worked communally on such tasks, likely to speed the process as well as to socialize. In doing so, they created community.
In the end, textile dying becomes a metaphor for creativity, and particularly for writing, as a way of meditating upon and ultimately releasing trauma. Smith’s book serves as a step on that path. Her non-linear style works in perfect sync with trauma and recovery; psychology tells us that memory of trauma is patchy and clouded by the emotional flooding. Here, it is clear that the trauma comes nearly as much from the betrayal by her boss and coworkers, through their unwillingness to support her, as it does from the original harassment itself. Smith’s formal choices also recall the recursive structure of traditional women’s work; there is always more work to do be done, more cloth to dye, more cook- ing, more cleaning, more sewing. The thematic melding of the contemporary moment, where women are bravely speaking out about sexual violence of all kinds, with an old-fashioned craft also works well with the non-linear form, creating a winding route that links women’s lives then and now.
Jessica Smith, Founding Editor of Foursquare and name magazines and Coven Press, serves as the Librarian for Indian Springs School, where she co- curates its Visiting Writers Series. She is the author of numerous chapbooks including mnemotechnics (above/ground 2013) and three full-length collections: ORGANIC FURNITURE CELLAR (Outside Voices/Bootstrap Press, 2006), LIFE-LIST (Chax Press, 2015), and HOW TO KNOW THE FLOWERS (Veliz Books, 2019).
Kim Jacobs-Beck (reviewer) is a poet and a professor of English at the University of Cincinnati Clermont College. Born and raised just outside Detroit, she now lives in Hamilton Ohio, somewhere between Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio. She studied English literature and creative writing at Beloit College, has an MA in literature from the University of Delaware and an MFA in Poetry and a PhD in eighteenth and nineteenth century British literature from Miami University (Ohio). She enjoys reviewing poetry collections for her fellow poets.
Kim Jacobs-Beck (reviewer) is a poet and a professor of English at the University of Cincinnati Clermont College. Born and raised just outside Detroit, she now lives in Hamilton Ohio, somewhere between Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio. She studied English literature and creative writing at Beloit College, has an MA in literature from the University of Delaware and an MFA in Poetry and a PhD in eighteenth and nineteenth century British literature from Miami University (Ohio). She enjoys reviewing poetry collections for her fellow poets.