Flourescence

The opening sections of the collection Fluorescence by Jennifer Dick are very though evoking. Books of poetry follow a few different patterns. There are epics like the Iliad that are an entire novel written in poetry, and there are books that are just many poems bound together in no particular order. Dick’s manuscript follows a different pattern that is very interesting. All of the poems in the book are her own work and flow like a story but are not tied together. Her poems follow a traumatic experience in her life that is not easily revealed to the reader. You move through the events leading up to whatever it is that left her so damaged into her horrific recollection of the event itself and through the aftermath. As the reader goes through this dick uses powerful metaphors and allusions to make the reader feel every emotion that she feels herself. Her work shows one of the most important things that a poet can have and needs to make their audience feel: Empathy. Empathy is the way that humans understand each other, the way we bond and grow, feeling each other’s feelings, seeing through each other’s eyes. That is the power of poetry, it is a tool that can make it easier for us to understand another person, give us a peek at who they are. Dick’s poems aside from being well written are an excellent medium of emotion, despite their depressing overtone.