Saints & Cannibals

Hamms world is female and Plathian in fact in its unflinching pronouncements of truth. Joyfully acrobatic is her language and the wonderful jumps she makes. Hers is a voice we have been waiting for. Cynthia Cruz author of Ruin Saints & Cannibals has the continuity texture and heart of a great novel. The words here are made out of real human cells splitting and alive. Hamm writes poems that are simultaneously powerful and delicate reticent and deeply moving. Joanna Fuhrman author of Moraine The pungent scent of horses corn straw fur smoke and meat take their place at the table of the readers memory in Christine Hamms collection Saints & Cannibals. The narrator inhabits the minds and bodies of Enid and Claire Hansel and Gretel Joan of Arc siblings mothers and babies and its hard to tell at times who are the saints and who are the cannibals. Animals abound some with mystical powers My cat purrs and spits into my eye. She has / gathered tigers around me. Hamm explores the boundaries of the body in exquisite detail; puberty cancer eating disorders and the lure and horrors of modern medicine escalate into fertility rites witches and the heartbreaking loss of childhood. These poems do not dally in Victorian daydreams or ruffled pinafores. They are feral. They shriek and bite and get under your skin. I could die from you the narrator warns us in Muscular Wrist and she tells the truth. Rebecca Loudon author of Cadaver Dogs