Confessional Poetry That’s Both Grisly & Delicate
The poetry in Lone Yellow Flower by Erika Gill is both grisly and delicate, just like the wound of heartbreak that the speaker explores. The poems in this collection are confessional, tactile, and studded with gut-punching moments.
Hands in Motion
Hands, fingers, and touch take up space in a lot of the poems, and it’s an intriguing motif I recommend annotating. Hand imagery begins in the first poem with a haunting, defiant statement: “my hands cannot be put to rest.” I immediately imagined the poet’s hands at work writing the 50 poems we read in this collection.
What I love about all the hand imagery is that it is brought full circle at the end. We face the idea of the poet’s unresting hands again in the final poem where they describe fingers forced open, forced to let everything held fall to the floor.
I’m still wrestling with the final image of an open hand that’s actively letting go. Selfishly, the lines made me think of my own fingers holding this collection. What if the poet is speaking to me, the reader finishing the last poem of their book? In a way, by finishing the book, the speaker is naturally forcing the book out of my grasp. There are no more poems to read after all. Inevitably, after this last poem, Lone Yellow Flower will fall from my hands and go on the shelf.
This collection is perfect for readers who are…
- Interested in deglamorized explorations of mind-body connections (see below) and healing therapies (like mindfulness, yoga, singing bowls…)
- Not squeamish about grisly imagery, e.g., blood and organs
- Fans of Silvia Plath, Adrienne Rich (who is mentioned in the collection), Audre Lorde, Anne Sexton
Mind-Body Connections Notes: Because of the specifically intestinal, visceral imagery embedded in the poems and references to gut health, I thought often the vagus nerve and how connected our gut health is with mental health. The vagus nerve is never explicitly mentioned, but I felt like this pathway between the brain and digestive system was being discussed behind the scenes in several poems.
Annotation Tips: Imagery, Themes, and Topics That I Annotated
I highlighted and annotated a lot of patterns in this collection, to include:
- Hands, fingers
- Heartbreak
- Feeling severed / unmoored
- Flight attending poems
- Consumption/ craving/ sugar / waste themes (very layered)
- Slow healing
- Nature
- Paris
- Astrology
- The speaker’s bookish traits!
Favorite Motif to Annotate: Humpty Dumpty
I was super intrigued by how all these poems have Humpty Dumpty imagery and themes of falling and/or cracking open.
- Broken pipe/May 24/ Death toll 97,672
- Slime
- Skyline view
- In my dreams I am a runner
- Lilacs in the alley
- If it comes
Favorite Poems
- Doomscrolling
- No Left; Child Behind
- Coffee and strawberries
E-Reader Friendly Poems
Don’t hesitate to get this collection as an e-book. The formatting of Erika Gill’s poems are ideal for the e-book reading experience. Here’s why.
- The poems are typically one page long,
- The poems have consistent left alignment without indentations, and
- The poems feature mostly short lines.
I comfortably read the poems on my Kindle with the font size set to size 4 (and sometimes larger.) I read in portrait orientation for most of the collection, only switching to landscape for a few of the poems that had longer lines (because I wanted to keep the original enjambment intact).
Thank you Net Galley and Querencia Press for an advanced reader copy to review. All opinions are my own. Lone Yellow Flower by Erika Gill is out April 18, 2025.
Annotate With Sara 