Review of Zoe Dzunko’s Selfless
Zoe Dzunko’s Selfless bores its hole into infinity through measuring exact time, places itself at the center of discussions through seemingly – somehow – peripheral examinations of the self, and stakes its claim for relevance in the too often politically neutral ground of the lyric. Dzunko asserts herself into this mélange of theoretical drives in order to give them greater clarity as well as to explore the liminal spaces where the self interacts with and defines itself against those drives.
Dzunko’s world is a world fraught with theoretical tension – literally in theory – but the tension never outweighs each poem’s task at hand to deliver maximum punch at minimal cost. The word that comes to mind when reading Dzunko’s work is lithe, and the poems inSelfless are lithe as fuck. Every word, phrase, stanza, line break, every constitutive element of each piece here is placed so meticulously that it’s a wonder it all feels so spontaneous still.
One of the chap’s most beautiful aspects is its ability to seamlessly place personal meditations beside trenchant comments on society and culture. The meditations and critiques are often so intertwined that they connect along lines – in lines of poetry – that surprise readers with their combined ingenuity and verve. Like all good poetry, it’s like watching someone write (or read) poetry while they are actually writing (or reading) it; it brings you into the experience of inspiration behind the poems.
The fact that the reader becomes a part of the action in Selfless is astounding considering how elevated the language and general tone of the chap often are. Even so, there are enough pockets of “lower” language to assuage those annoyed by the other half of the chap that is elevated. The point of the chap then becomes to have the two conjoin at the same time the meditations and critiques are converging in the subject matter. The diction then reflects the subject matter and vice versa, reinforcing its appearance of clocklike construction. It’s also just really cool.
What I at first thought was a problem area of the chap turned out to be one of its most interesting features. In the first half especially, some of the beginning or ending lines fall short of the middle of the poem, like in “Boterismo”, “Sand Under Nails”, or “All of It”. It’s actually one of the more interesting aspects of the chap because middles are too often the neglected portions of poems. Everybody can point to a poem that begins or ends extremely well, but it’s harder to find someone who gets really excited about the entire middle, where all the turns happen, where the meat of the poem is, where time stands still through a careful measurement of it, and where the line between sympathy and empathy is found.
It’s my favorite chap of last year because no collection has consistently haunted me more through its suggestions or possibilities. I first read it in August of last year, and it followed me around taking up brainspace the rest of the year, through its alternately unique or evocative titles, through its nuance regarding theory (it becomes fairly obvious Dzunko has read a lot of it), and through its variety of subject matter somehow still adhering to the self.
The way she examines relationships is beautiful because the beauty of the poem and experience and selfhood always take precedence over the relationships themselves, something that’s very ennobling, ennoblement through beauty and beautiful through ennoblement. Also: empowering through contradictions (“Excision”), powerful through pain (“Absolution”), sexual through analytical movement (“Pudendum”).
The last thing I’ll note is that Dzunko’s situations and contexts throughout the chap are simultaneously obtuse and crystal-clear, bringing into sharper focus our assumptions about the assumed contexts. Dzunko dares readers to assume and then rewards them for not doing so, a trick many other, less fresh writers should learn. Read, keep assuming, get rebuffed, assume less, learn the contexts, read more, discover more, find more.
Blake Wallin is the author of the chapbooks Otherwise Jesus (Ghost City Press, 2015) and No Sign on the Island (Bottlecap Press, 2016) as well as the microchap The Lucidity of Giving Up (Ghost City Press, 2016). He is the Reviews/Interviews Editor for Ghost City Review.