Kim Addonizio’s What is this Thing Called Love reaches through the looking glass.
If that is not clear enough, where a confessional poet’s version of these poems might harp on the “woe is me” shtick, Addonizio manages to allow the reader to experience these poems as though they come from inside, and not from the page. So, not that we are reading a memoir, but experiencing all the love offered to us. Even reminding the reader in a subtle way of other personal experiences. Sometimes, I can almost imagine being the speaker. Whether that is a fault of Addonizio’s writing, or my own empathy, I do not know; but I have an understanding, a connaissance, that is drawn out by the poems in this collection.
