affect theory – julianne neely – garden-door press, 2020

the sentence is Julianne Neely’s hero or villain but nowhere in between, standing as the rare or the only superlative in a book that’s opposed to any structures of/or meaning untethered from the word ambivalent; Neely knows exactly what she wants to say but knows enough to know words alone can never be sure of anything especially with a subject attached. and that’s what we find throughout. ambivalent subjects and misdirected referents blurring between the periods and over the violence that ruptures throughout but refuses to pretend naming will make any thing better. afFect theory could not be any longer than it is running out of breath right alongside the reader. This is a speaker who lives despite the flower poem and whomever piece of her wrote it. which you really ought to find.