Chelsea Wagenaar
Winner of the聽2018 Michael Waters Poetry Prize
The Spinning Place considers聽the body as the origin of ecstasy聽and agony, revealing how聽language鈥攊ts possibilities聽and limits鈥攂ridges us to one聽another, but also shatters聽intimacy. The collection鈥檚 three聽sections examine origin, exile,聽and the reconciliation of praise聽and sorrow with lyric precision聽and the heart of storytelling.聽The poems ask us to behold the ordinary astonishment of聽birth, motherhood, and faith:聽to witness the everyday as聽though it were sacred.
鈥淐helsea Wagenaar鈥檚 gorgeous new collection, The Spinning Place, examines the聽body鈥檚 gifts and fragilities alongside language鈥檚 failure to give a name to our singular experiences. Full of delivery room sacraments, lullabies, bedtime rituals, and stories聽too true to finish, these poems intimate familial connection and the way words are perhaps not necessary鈥攈ow sound without meaning can draw someone closer.聽Wagenaar revives experiences I know but makes language new again, transforming nouns into verbs and giving the body ways to speak, ways for hands to measure the聽height of sorrow, ways for wounds to have breath enough to sing.鈥�
-Traci Brimhall
鈥淐helsea Wagenaar鈥檚 The Spinning Place excavates an essential question of poetry:聽How do we express the ineffable? 鈥楬ow do we live / what we cannot say?鈥� What is the word for 鈥榓lluvial silt of tea still warm in the porcelain鈥�? Her high music permeates聽this collection from everyday objects to the close-mortal, where she collapses battles,聽stadiums, and classrooms in a wonderfully disjunctive thrall: 鈥楾hey absolve midterm聽dates, / cancel Gettysburg, erode the ribs / of the human skeleton. / They unstack the聽kindling / of the music staff, halve the half notes, / unconjugate cantar.鈥� Wagenaar鈥檚聽鈥榩rimal chorus鈥� of witness brings poetry back to what matters.鈥�
-Mark Irwin
鈥淧erhaps not since Elizabeth Spires鈥檚 Worldling (1995) has a poet written a book about聽motherhood so eloquent and full of feeling as Chelsea Wagenaar鈥檚 The Spinning聽Place鈥攖he womb in which the child turns and stirs, our planet and the means (bicycle聽spokes, boat propellers) by which we traverse it, and especially the source of language聽spun toward meaning. 鈥業f our experience flows through the current / of language,鈥櫬燱agenaar asks, 鈥榯hen how do we live / what we cannot say?鈥� Always searching for the聽precise word to describe her connection to her daughter, her daughter鈥檚 connection to聽the world and, by extension, our connections to each other, Wagenaar moves warily but聽affirmatively forward, 鈥榓lways singing // what we cannot change.鈥� The Spinning Place聽pulls us into its orbit through the pleasures and mysteries of its making.鈥�
-Michael Waters
Read Amie Whittemore's interview with Chelsea...
The Spinning Place cover artist is聽.