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THE HALO RULE by Teresa Leo Elixir Press, 2008, $16.00 paper, ISBN 9781932418255
In a recent conversation with the poet and critic Joel Brouwer, I asked if he had noticed an attenuation of what I simplistically termed "relationship poetry? He replied succinctly, "Emotions are out of fashion." Indeed, one rarely finds many newer poets approaching relationships using direct, unelliptical language, poets of the ilk of Louise Glück or Jack Gilbert, who investigate love and loss by poring over the scenes, mementos, dregs, and follies that come with our arguably universal quest for love.
Teresa Leo is an exception. In her debut collection, The Halo Rule, we find poems that move, candidly and clearly, over a range of romantic topologies and deal predominately with longing and strife. Often, however, her poems have a hard time progressing past inventory. Here is a considerable portion of "Song of Woo with a Hole in It"
When you leave,
take the embalmed summer squash
you sent through the mail
as a sign of affection,
the apricot pit
you sucked to the bone
then thrust in my mouth
during the first kiss
of our first night of bedpost
and fruit and nylon seduction;
[...]
take the poolhall serenade,
the see-and-raise metaphors,
the mouth and neck allusions,