Crying Dress

April 15, 2024
The inventive, philosophical, and verbally playful third collection from McFadzean (Drolleries) invites readers to the altar of her language. Here, truth emerges not as a statement of fact, but as a dynamic process of embracing life on life’s terms. “Kissing the Abyss” begins in the proverbial garden, with “the stench of fallen apples,” and ends by riffing on the motif: “Each breath a bonfire// Stick a pitchfork in me Heaven-scent.” In the title entry, crying is the crossroads between joy and destiny when the speaker is given a dress that symbolizes “love as action/ The movement of a body in space geometric.” McFadzean demonstrates a keen interest in mapping the process of embracing that which is alive, “a landscape like Iceland/ The sound flowers make: their tiny roots amplified.” In “Go Sit in the White Hot,” lovers cherish “each fragment clasped to our clavicles, tight,” and in “Out-of-Body Experiment,” the “subconscious performs/ a ritual to banish the darkness.” Yet the darkness in these poems is formidable: myths colliding with internet algorithms and teenagers cutting themselves to make deep scars. Despite these dangers, McFadzean suggests that light remains the best disinfectant. These incantatory poems are “in the shape of a star,” lighting the way, even though “there was a time we could have gone back but that time has passed.”