Regulars of the Philadelphia poetry scene have been the lucky audience members of Amber Renee’s spellbinding live readings that weave her poetry together with haunting music. It almost seems a disservice to her work to remove the unique and integral musical component. Note I used the world almost. Amber Renee’s In memory, energy creates its own spellbinding soundscapes through a multilayered and heady mélange of rhythm, rhyme, consonance, and alliteration. This is a gem of a chapbook that begs to be read aloud.
One of the most striking poems in this collection is “Newspapers//2020.” In this poem, the narrator navigates the pain of losing her mother while thinking about “driving my old delivery route/ again. I haven’t seen the starfall in/ 10 months now.” She documents the random thoughts or the animals she encounters in her way, “There were always deer on my route/raccoons & rabbits.” Spinning in concentric circles widening like a ripple in a pond as the poem continues, Renee finds a measure of solace in the animal kingdom through
cardinals, with their flashes of red
hair (??) --
(fluttering/troubled) me ,enough to spark
curiosity. Google says “the red cardinal is
representative
of a departed loved one’s attempting
contact.
By the end of the poem, the cardinals end up “blocking the road” a wonderfully poetic reminder that when loved ones leave us, their presence lingers.
“At 27” is another strong poem in the collection. An interesting facet of Renee’s work is how her poems seem to connect back with themselves in new and surprising ways. While the narrator relays her stay in the hospital, she is compelled to write “I filled 2 composition notebooks that way/ (Rules against spirals.)” This line effortlessly connects to a later stanza “I/ clutched that notebook to my chest and kept thinking/ until I spiraled. (Of this kind, allowed. But not/ encouraged.” Making new friends in an unlikely place, the narrator celebrates her 27th birthday ending the poem with the indelible lines “If I want to show/ these people (I may never meet again) my/ appreciation, wouldn’t it be great, to pick up a grocery store cake, at 28?” These lines show off Renee’s fine sense of craft regarding rhythm, line breaks, and near rhyme to great effect.
In this collection, Renee’s imagination is not merely earthbound but rockets to the cosmos in the powerful poems “& then there was light—” and “) )) Meteor Litanies )) *.” In a rhythmic and imagery tour de face, Renee write in “& then there was light—”
Poke a hole in the moon,
crater my face into freckles. Turn
my hair to a spacetime;
each curl/ a universe
in a vast expanse of frizz.
This poem reminds me of Audre Lorde’s concept of biomythology examined in Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. Concluding the poem perfectly (a special Amber Renee skillset), she writes
I long for the day I’m the painter &
not the page. Iron-rich blood
as the paint. & even the proteins & my
DNA, came from space.
The title of this chapbook comes from the formerly mentioned “) )) Meteor Litanies )) *.” This poem weaves in an intriguing place where the surreal meets an intellectual melancholy. The lines whirl like galaxies seen from space
Polycephalic // (in that)
there are many truths to this end.
Each truth like a head/ from the body of *null
creation, masterpieces
humming vibration, strings in relation to multiverse
making
The poem spirals (remember the earlier mention of spiral) until it reaches its end (or beginning?)
In memory,
energy/ follows the heart home like an imprint
genetic passed down heritage/ triggers
the spiritual DNA not to
go away, but, like a
stain etched from fire, it
stays.
This chapbook collection is one for the ages. I have read it several times, and it grows more glorious, more illuminating with each rereading. I do want the readers of this review to know I can only approximate how Renee’s poems look on the page—her typography is a work of art in itself, which I recommend you check out. In memory, energy is a book exploring love, loss, belonging, and literally the cosmos in an intimate, breathtaking manner. This collection no doubt ranks among the finest of Moonstone’s many chapbooks.
Sean Hanrahan is a Philadelphian poet originally hailing from Dale City, Virginia. He is the author of the full-length collection Safer Behind Popcorn (2019 Cajun Mutt Press) and the chapbooks Hardened Eyes on the Scan (2018 Moonstone Press) and Gay Cake (2020 Toho). His work has also been included in several anthologies, including Moonstone Featured Poets, Queer Around the World, and Stonewall’s Legacy, and several journals, including Impossible Archetype, Mobius, Peculiar, Poetica Review, and Voicemail Poems. He has taught classes titled A Chapbook in 49 Days and Ekphrastic Poetry and hosted poetry events throughout Philadelphia.