Review: Lorrie Ness
On Anatomy of a Wound by Lorrie Ness
by Tyler Truman Julian
Lorrie Ness’ chapbook, Anatomy of a Wound, is an intimate dissection of grief and close, personal examination of growing up. The chapbook’s narrative poems explore illness, suicide and the fallout surrounding a loved one’s death, moving effectively from imagist-esque moments of body horror to the lyric occasion to show the beauty and tragedy of the loneliness that comes with losing a parent. A story as singular and personal as this is made universal across the pages of Anatomy of a Wound by inviting the reader into the place of grief and the familiar memory of growing up through vivid imagery, powerful storytelling, and the condensed cohesion of the chapbook form.
The chapbook opens with “Unzipped,” a no-nonsense poem describing the speaker’s mother’s autopsy. The speaker describes how the mother’s body was observed after death and allows this poem to ground and direct the rest of the chapbook: “Time of death, 11:11. Manner, / suicide.” The concise and intentional framing of the mother’s death colors the remaining 21 poems of the chapbook, helping the reader understand the personal tragedy. This allows Ness’ speaker to present several personal, lyrical poems presenting her family history before returning to her mother’s death. For example, the speaker explores her relationship to her mother in relationship to a recent relocation and another girl in the area. She shares,
We were new to Florida, living with dad’s parents
in a mobile home edging an unpaved road.
There was no AC, just aluminum roofing
sealing in the summer heat.
Sweat from four adults and one child
marinated inside the walls.
Most evenings I came outside with mom
airing my legs in cutoffs as Mikki streaked by.
Lap after lap. Orbiting
like she was caught by the gravity of this place.
Nightfall was our renewable resource,
its shadows filling in the gaps of her ripped clothes,
transforming her briefly
before the sunrise tore her up once more.
She’d wait for her folks’ light to go out,
then lean her bike against the chain link, tiptoe in.
Every evening it was the three of us
keeping vigil under the moon.
(“The Move”)
The childhood poems throughout the chapbook tell a story of closeness between mother and daughter, grown through solidarity and isolation. This relationship builds as the poet-speaker ages and the mother gets sick and ultimately dies by suicide. The speaker explains,
The facts are simple.
She came into my room that February morning,
flipped the lights and smiled,
backed out the door.
I had been using an alarm
since she got sick two years before.
Every day after,
I’d been waking her with an injection
before catching the bus to school.
This was the only morning
she said she wanted to do it herself.
I was a teenager, happy to be off the hook.
The facts are simple.
This was the last time I saw her alive.
I was in US history as she pulled the trigger.
(“Goodbye”)
The reliance on one another ends in this moment, and the speaker is now alone, forced to confront grief and trauma on her own. What follows are poems about the poet’s discovery of her mother’s body and the emotional impact of that. It is in the act of writing though that the poet is able to find solace and understand that in her mother’s death “[s]he was seeking comfort” (“Autopsy Report: Between the Lines”). Before coming to a close, the chapbook challenges the reader to make this connection, to bear the poet’s burden of grief in solidarity. Exploring the often-toxic dynamic of a writing workshop, the speaker tells the story of how a writing group’s
comments were constructive, supportive,
until they got to mine. This is totally implausible!
How could a woman get ahold of a gun?
You’re asking too much here.
Too much of what?
The only reason you bring up suicide
is to get sympathy. You’re burdening the reader.
The poem explored the stigma of suicide—
the multiple reasons why loved ones
stay silent.
(“The Sin of Telling (Not Showing)”)
The personal is universal in this specific instance and throughout the chapbook as a whole because Ness makes sure we understand her story and recognize ourselves in it. Are we going to be those workshoppers or someone else entirely?
Grief and coming of age are common subjects in our current poetic moment, but Anatomy of a Wound by Lorri Ness adds a forthright look at suicide and the search for solace to these conversations in an intentional and significant way. This chapbook should be added to anyone’s reading list on grief, for in it the reader will not only experience grief, but come away with the challenge to walk side-by-side with those who are processing loss.