Poet Spotlight: Perfect Objects - A chapbook review of "Mouth" by Tracey Knapp
Part 1 of 4: Introducing Tracey Knapp, the poem "Perfect Objects," and the Poet Spotlight series.
I decided to dig into poetry I’m digging these days…
“You should take this home and read it; this is one of her books,” my friend Tuesday said as a primer. I was her up to go to Tracey Knapp’s birthday party, whom I’d never met before—until I read her poems.
Once you read someone’s poetry, you initiate a handshake. In many ways, as a reader, you meet the poet’s heart and mind through their words. Luckily, things resonate, and they begin to speak to your soul.
Tracey’s 2015 work, Mouth, did such a thing for me. She had me at “Magnetia” with “pulsing iris,” but I digress.
Her words pile you into her purse of life. I could imagine being wedged between sticks of gum, napkins, and her poetry.
You’d be in there, too, if you read Mouth.
Over the next few weeks, I'm thrilled beyond belief to share selected works from this acclaimed collection, which has been re-published with permission. YAY!
Knapp has this uncanny ability to lead us into moments where clarity strikes like lightning. Her poems hover in that electric space between perception and understanding, between wanting and losing. Perhaps, it’s one big fat projection? What draws me most to her work is how she takes the mundane—a delayed flight, a relationship misunderstanding, a fleeting attraction—and transforms those everyday moments into something illuminating. Something wonderfully, “Ah.” And, “Oh, haha.”
There's an unflinchingness to her voice that's impossible to ignore. Unsurprisingly, Mouth received the 42 Miles Press Poetry Award and was a finalist for the Melissa Lanitis Gregory Poetry Prize. Knapp doesn't flinch from brutal truths, yet she often approaches them with unexpected humor that catches you off guard.
“Please don’t say she’s Charles Bukowski with breasts,” I tell myself.
Each week, I'll feature a poem selected from Mouth (about three more), offering a glimpse into Knapp's finely tuned emotional landscapes. I'm grateful to Tracey and 42 Miles Press for allowing me to share these poems with the Visual Liquid community—it feels like passing along that same book my friend handed to me, saying, "You need to read this."
Here’s Perfect Objects1—to tease you:
Perfect Objects
Perhaps it is true that you are lost,
your aimless job shucking oysters,
another love going nowhere fast,
another wrong turn off the freeway
that takes you the wrong way down
the wrong road. Where are you going?
Even the kitchen mouse has more direction
than you, moving up in life from the flax seed
to the cat food. The cat glowers
from the corner, counting each pellet.
You glower at the sous chef
who is in grad school for archaeology—
what the hell is he going to do with
that? What the fact with his pride?
You should know—you, with your degree
in geography, your own fascination
with rock formation. What perfect objects.
How you can always find them
again. How they stand still for so long
in one position, like it’s their only job.
Talk about dead-end jobs!
I’m grateful to Tracey Knapp, 42 Miles Press, and editor David Dodd Lee for allowing us to share these poems with the Visual Liquid community. Follow them on Instagram. They’ll never know what hit them.
Here’s the updated link to her book from Wolfson Press.
It’s best to buy off the publisher’s & author’s pages. But see this AMAZON link here if you must.
—Disclaimer:
All content is ideated, written, moderated, and reviewed by Visual Liquid (human) editors—like me—for accuracy, and the occasional typo.
Assisted with AI editing.
"Perfect Objects" by Tracey Knapp from Mouth. © 2015 by Tracey Knapp. Reprinted with permission of 42 Miles Press, Indiana University South Bend.
Visual Liquid is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support the work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Or ☕️ here: https://ko-fi.com/tessmccarthy