Alicia Mountain

I read less formal poetry than I used to, but after reading a snippet of one of Mountain's heroic crowns, I was excited to dig into this collection of four long poems, especially since I do adore longer poems and they're somewhat harder to find in today's world. The four poems here are incredibly different, which is what makes this a difficult review. "Initial Descent" was, without doubt, my favorite--it uses the form to perform a gorgeous reveal of meaning that aligns Mountain's powerful use of language with social justice, meaning-making, and personal experience. There are some beautiful moments in the poem, and as soon as I finished it, I went back to the start and read it again. My second-favorite was the opening heroic crown, "Train Town Howl", which is another stellar example of the form even if there were moments where I felt the form dictated a bit more than was necessary and made for some rougher moments than there might have been otherwise (which had, admittedly, also been the case in the previous poem I mentioned, but to a lesser extent).

And yet, the other two poems felt as if they were included only because of their form. I could appreciate "Sparingly" to some extent, though it was too minimalist for my taste. Then, I have to admit that the ending heroic crown, "MyMerrill", feels more like a weird experiment than a finished piece. I actually got only a few stanzas into it before I had to flip to the back of the book to find any notes that might explain what I was reading. The notes did explain, but unfortunately, they made it even clearer that the poem was more of an experiment/challenge than anything. I read a bit more of it, but eventually had to give up on it, and it's hard for me to understand why a seasoned poet would feel the need to include it alongside such powerful poems as the ones that came before it. If not for this poem, the book would probably have been a 4/4.5* read for me, but as is, that last big piece of the book left me just a bit short of annoyed, more than anything, as it seemed like such wasted space/time.

I'd recommend this to readers who want to explore more contemporary form poetry, though it's unlikely that it will lead me to go out of my way to look for more form poetry or more work from Mountain, much as I really did enjoy "Initial Descent."… (more)

This is a set of 4 heroic crowns, where each sonnet in the sequence begins with the last line of the previous poem, until the final poem, which consists of all 14 initial lines preceding it. To me, the last section, "MyMerrill" is the best. It is made of of phrases found in newsletters from Merrill Lynch, and it captures with humor the absurdity of our relationship with these virtual entities. My least favorite section is the second, "Sparingly." It is an interesting concept: each line in each sonnet is made up of a single word, so each poem is only 14 words long. It is indeed spare. But because of the strictures of the crown, Mountain had to close and open some sonnets with connective words (e.g., "that"). To me, it was an exercise that didn't quite work. Overall, though, these are interesting poems that make use of an almost forgotten form.… (more)

There is a risk for any reader approaching Four in Hand. A reader can get trapped by the mastery of execution and the structural solidity of not one but four sonnet crowns, and forget about the emotional content of the poems. But if there is a risk, it is not without its joy. Risking being fascinated by the form, allows to be embraced by the sentiments and hard truths it contains. The poems do not offer easy answers to hard questions. It does, however, promises that we will not have to face them alone. At times evocative of Minnie Bruce Pratt (in "Initial Descent") or Robert Lax (in "Sparingly"), Alicia Mountain has a captivating voice of her own.… (more)