the stone in my shoe

Reading this unguent, burning swath of highly original poems by writer Lucy Logsdon, each one eats into one’s heart, sears and melts into one’s consciousness as if placed into a crucible. Logsdon’s subjects range wide and fierce: accepting spanking rather than detention while in grade school; struggles while recovering from addition; disillusionment of divorce and the ravages it places on trust, expectation, and one’s psyche. How strongly should we stand up to authority? What are the limits of trust? Can we ever truly know another human being? To be a woman is to feel trapped in the web of expectations put in place by men and society. Logsdon shows how one may break free by the sheer will of one’s own being.

But there will be repercussions, both outward and inward, chosen and so self-inflicted, a price for such freedoms. What befalls us from our decisions? These visceral poems reveal both the glee and pain that ensues from her choices, as a strong woman navigating through this insane, unwieldy world. But it is the love and ferocity of this poets’s unexpected responses, a tiger smashing against its cage, that leaves us breathless, astounded, amazed.