In Opening Ceremony, Laura Marie Marciano’s second collection, the Fourth of July happens at least three times, but the American Dream still doesn’t come. Instead, “your boss hires her husband over you,” “[t]he dean won’t hire adjuncts / full time,” then:
Five months pregnant and I find out myOpening Ceremony
Laura Marie MarcianoMetatron Press
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64pp
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Not a context conducive to art, but make art we must. Amid dark undercurrents that often implicate poet and reader alike, Marciano creates her own rituals. She finds beauty in astonishing collections of objects and sensations, such as in “BOMB ROSE WATER”:
[…] I feel the boulder of despair shrink a little
when I think of […] that piña colada
with candy cherry scent you gave me in the car on the long
road to Loiza sitting out the window while Ava Maria played
off Bluetooth and it’s ok if no one gets us really
At the centre of this ceremony is “melo” (short for Carmelo), to whom the book is dedicated. Make no mistake, this is a love poem; its arc is the poet-muse’s relationship, at once so romantic and realistic that Elizabeth Barrett Browning would both nod in approval and blush.mRb
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