Sulphurtongue appears to be the first full poetry collection by Rebecca Salazar, though she has previously published two chapbooks. Within a few poems, it is evident that Salazar is a queer poet (though not apparently a non-binary poet). Her poems in the first two sections largely focus on violence towards women, opposing the patriarchy and the somewhat complicated dynamics of rejecting religion (the Catholic faith) when it is still so important to other family members, particularly Salazar's grandmother. These poems seemed as if they had been lifted from a 70s feminist manifesto, though of course the distinct lack of progress in combating male violence over the intervening 50 years is distinctly depressing. Nonetheless, these two sections didn't resonate much with me.
The third section "dopplebanger" was more interesting when Salazar turned a somewhat acid and jaded Millenial eye to an imagined future where she has a doppleganger (sort of a spiritual twin) who has apparently gone down a more conventional path and has children. In "Dynasty" she has spawned daughters that chew their fingernails but can still be relied upon to serve drinks. Really getting into the spirit of the typical television fantasy of the nouveau riche, she writes. "It's all slander and lies, salamanders and lye, / salmonella and limes, salvaged divorcée lust, you and I." This may have been the first poem where I really noticed Salazar's wordplay, and I went back through collection again to see what I might have overlooked.
In "Guys" she continues projecting into the future: "You'll find your teenager gets off to vintage Harry potter slash. / You'll remember the saga you blogged at their age, and get sweaty." Nothing like the hypocrisy of the middle-aged...
I suppose this isn't technically wordplay, but I found some phrases quite compelling. From "Voyeurs": "Peer through plumes of steam for tea-leaf omens. / They stare back, indignant. Prophecies need privacy." And from "Miss": "My lacklustre séance summons just / a jaundiced flicker of your form."
On the whole, the "dopplebanger" section had the strongest or at least most interesting (to me) poems.
That said, the fourth section "sulphur bonds" which is a sort of extended meditation on Sudbury, Ontario (where Salazar grew up) and its rise and fall linked to mining in the area, has no less than three poems that involve riding the bus! As I've mentioned elsewhere, I am always on the lookout for poems about transportation.
If I am interpreting correctly, "Commute Quartet" is about a mentally unstable, potentially homeless, woman who "hums low to her wolves" as she boards the bus, then "claims / three seats at he front of the bus."
While it is longer (and thus a bit harder to anthologize), I think I prefer "640 West End / Gatchell / Copper Cliff" which engages in people watching on a broader scale and also suggests a bus that is better utilized and more central to the needs of the community: "At one forty-eight, the driver unlocks the one-thirty bus. / You board, an alphabetical procession of iron-on flags: / Brazil and Columbia on backpacks, then Denmark, Italy, / Ukraine, on trucker caps. A ceremonial FIFA cast-off / défilage, the colours merging in the monochrome / of strained fluorescent lighting as the bus roars." Salazar watches from the window as the bus passes through the town, with most of the scenes reflecting a mining town down on its luck due to the "falling price of nickel." The focus shifts back inside the bus. "The turn onto Serpentine shakes loose the smells / that have burrowed in the balding plush bus seats: / white onion fried in peanut oil, an empty paper bag / now oozing grease onto an empty seat, the warmth of bread / perpetually baking at the factory on Lorne."
After a somewhat unpromising start, I found a lot to like in the 3rd and 4th sections of Salazar's Sulphurtongue.
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