What I've Read: Tremulous Hinge by Adam Gianelli

The poems of Tremulous Hinge are delightful in their play with theme and form; poet Adam Giannelli has a clear love of language and continuously utilizes it in an interesting way. Words become their own preoccupation in the text, being elaborated upon, challenged, and measured against each other in a manner both artful and thoughtful (which is to say that it never becomes too heavy-handed and meta-referential). This play with form is most apparent on a sentence-by-sentence basis, as Giannelli's skillfully deploys assonance, consonance, alliteration, et al. As a result, a number of the poems practically demand to be read aloud.

Striking images also populate the text, providing an artful sense of illustration to themes as widely varying as stuttering, loss, love and the myriad ways in which we find solace and consolation. Each poem is deftly felt and witnessed, often distilling particular moments into verse in a way that feels tonally similar to haiku, even if the poem itself is multi-stanza and/or free verse.

Giannelli's poems are carefully crafted with an impeccable alignment of details, making Tremulous Hinge an exciting and fresh debut poetry collection.

Thank you to NetGalley and the University of Iowa Press for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for review.