Lies I Tell Myself by Sarah Jones
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Source: Purchased Paperback, 37 pgs. I am an Amazon Affiliate
Lies I Tell Myself by Sarah Jones is a chapbook of unsettling poems about the life in a mobile home park and beyond -- travailing experiences of abuse (physical, mental, emotional, sexual) and the consequences of those experiences. The childhood explored in these poems is dark, but there's also a strength in them -- a sense that the narrator can look upon these terrible moments and be better than them. Moments of stumbling occur in teen years, but there still is a thread of light in the collection.
From "Beginner's Guide to Failing" (pg. 1)
Listen to your stepfather say how much you look like your mother. Look into a mirror and see a white face too old to be yours. There are no apologies in this collection of highly intense poems of survival.
From "Souvenir de Mortefontaine Cinquain"
We are not those women who play with leaves and fruit. We swing the axe. Blister. Splinter. Ignite.
Jones' poems range from outright frustration and anger to a deep sadness about a lost childhood. Her verse and images are striking throughout, and readers will feel the turbulence of the violence and the abuse. But "strength seems to make things buoyant," the narrator says. Lies I Tell Myself by Sarah Jones is a testament to all of those people who have survived abuse and lived to see the beauty still in the world. The narrator is vulnerable but never weak in exposing her wounds to the world to tell her story and bear it all again.
Rating: Cinquain
About the Poet:
Sarah Jones is a poet and content specialist living in Seattle. She is the author of Lies I Tell Myself (dancing girl press & studio). She holds an M.F.A. in Poetry from Antioch University, Los Angeles. Her poetry has been featured on NPR and The Bridge. Her poems have appeared in New Ohio Review, The Normal School, Entropy magazine, Maudlin House, Raven Chronicles, City Arts Magazine, Yes, Poetry, and many other places. She is a reader for Poetry Northwest, and her poem “My Mother’s Neck” was nominated by the New Ohio Review for a 2019 Pushcart Prize.