An echo can be a strange concept or occurrence, as there needs to be a proportional distance before they are heard or realized. At times, there is a lack of immediacy with an echo, and the listener needs to be open to receiving the message delivered back in due time. This is especially evident in Joanna Solfrian’s Temporary Beast, as the reader needs time and space to digest the poems and await deeper understanding to come. In fact, the first poem, “Don’t Go to the River”, aptly sets the tone for this volume: “You will have a good place to sit / while you watch yourself flow by.” The reader is invited into this meditative space, to reflect on their own experiences while waiting for thematic intimations to reveal themselves. This singular poem set apart in an individual section, prepares the reader for the revelations and secrets which will be bestowed on them in subsequent chapters. They will need a prepared place of calm, their vantage point, as they embark forward with the speaker.
The serenity of the first poem is immediately disrupted by the poem, “My Human Condition,” which exists in stark contrast to the opening. Whereas the first one is prayer-like and appears to be the speaker’s wishes for what she aims to embody, the second one is instantly jarring and revealing. The reader is thrust into the first of many situations showing why the speaker cannot practice tranquility in her life at this moment. In this poem, the speaker describes an ectopic pregnancy that almost killed her, “The gutter-drop is happiest when it joins the river. / Today, when I have conversations, I’ll look people in the eye.” There is a mention of the river but gone are the introductory peaceful images, which have been replaced by the rapids and pitfalls, only a swollen river can contain. Solfrian’s usage of the confessional poetry form carries with it the raw emotional reverberations from a long lineage of confessional poets. While there are more creative and expressive freedoms allowed today, Solfrian allows her readers a glimpse into highly personal experiences, typically reserved for only those closest to the subject. She zeroes in on specific images and scenes “knife-like, to me, in its sudden cut.” The reader is often mid-thought or mid-scene when the speaker takes a detour, ends a revelation, or moves on to the next poem, once again leaving the reader to wait for an echo of understanding. The use of the scientific phrase “quantum weirdness” is a fitting way to divulge that the people in these poems, and perhaps even the reader, will respond to each other in unexpected yet intimate ways, despite their incredible distances from one another.
Experimentation with form is another way of echoing by means of imitating while recasting poems into different lines and patterns, in wholly unexpected outcomes. One poem flips the title and verse naming convention, by utilizing the title space as the poem and vice versa. The “you” with whom the speaker converses changes from the reader, to loved ones, to a dead parent. There are Rorschach poems after the Spanish poet Lorca, creative uses of white space to mimic the speaker’s questions amid the grief of loss, and recurring Ghazals celebrating a wide variety of objects and beings. All the while, Sofrian utilizes specific word choices and images in unique ways: “Later, you return home to the city and watch the glue fall off / the stars.” This is also evident in her witty observations, which turn the mundane routines of life into elevated, existential experiences: “Last night, I courted madness in the notes of a flute / played excruciatingly by a child.” Solfrian’s sardonic wit grounds the reader in reality, while allowing the juxtaposition between the speaker’s annoyances with daily life to be contrasted with larger current events.
This very idea of “courting madness” or “courting the lunatic” is a prominent reiteration within this volume, and likewise serves as a fitting complement to the Rorschach poems. The historical usage of inkblots is called to mind, given their subjective nature, left wide open for interpretation. Their bilateral symmetrical design can be seen as reflections, further reinforcing the duality of the speaker and nature: “The sea gave up its idea of mirrors long ago.” In the ars poetica titled “Dear Poems,” the speaker reflects on the forms her poetry has taken, before leading the reader into an elementary school Science Fair scene. She shares: “Dear poems, what am I doing to this “you”? I don’t know. The two humans that split off me need / so much I am muddled.” These two humans could be the speaker’s children or her real-life self and herself as the speaker in her poems. This pondering of halves is realized once more in the poem, “Feb. 4th, the Mathematic Middle of Winter,” which calls to mind all of the middles of life, moments held in suspension between the before and after, the past and the present, with the future always creeping into the timeline. The white spaces in this poem also form their own middle ground. The reader is forced to reckon with the speaker’s experiences, while simultaneously allowing these parallels to imprint themselves, impacting the reader beyond the final pages.