Gravity Well by Marc Rahe

Regular visitors to this blog will know that I'm always delighted when an opportunity to review some poetry pops up. And today is no exception. It's my stop on the blog tour for Gravity Well by Marc Rahe and you can find my thoughts below. Huge thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for the invitation and to the publisher for my review copy. 

The Blurb:

In Gravity Well, Marc Rahe’s incisive third collection, the poems beckon readers through an ever-shifting series of landscapes, drawing our gaze across a dynamic tableau— an octopus wearing a sweater, a white sky over the bridge we’re standing on, flowers pressed into a forgotten book — as a means of revealing the most particular thrills and anxieties of the human condition. Unafraid and unwavering, careful and concerned, Gravity Well propels its reader through the imagined apertures of the universe one striking image at a time, leaving us ocularly magnified in a world now seen anew. A singular voice in American poetry, Rahe deftly centers the body in relation to ailments such as love, decay, aging, friendship, and grief. His powerful, meditative plea is resounding: “Earth, turn me.”

Gravity Well will be published by Rescue Press on 20th October 2020 and you can pre-order it now direct from the publisher or from Amazon. 

My Review:

Gravity Well is a collection of 60 poems split into four sections titled with phases of the moon - Waxing Crescent, Waxing Gibbous, Waning Gibbous, Waning Crescent in which he explores life, love, aging and grief. There is a strong science feel to many of the pieces and I wonder if this is the author's background. 

This wasn't a collection I responded to immediately. Rahe has a writing style I'm not used to, although I feel it is quite akin to our thought process, mine anyway - flitting about like a butterfly in places. I read every poem twice, some three times for them to speak to me. With each reading I discovered new things, paused at a certain section of phrasing, smiled to myself at a thought, an image. And I imagine with each subsequent reading other elements will jump out at me. Not every poem worked for me, sometimes there was imagery that didn't connect with me, and that's OK - poems are designed to bring out different responses for different people. 

There were several standouts for me. Previous Lives takes a simple calendar with crossed out squares as the starting point for a detailed discussion of aging and the passage of time. Momentum contains my favourite line of the whole collection - 'These check stubs are marked and perforated foreshadowings of our regret.' I thought that was beautiful. Fable of the Cephalopod has the most wonderful imagery - no simple frog in the throat for Rahe, but a sea creature instead! In Winter, about the circle of life & death, made me a little sad and How I Miss You contains another beautiful line - 'What is warmth without your arm on me?' ,The Sky without Air fascinated me and I loved Design Specification, Is Coincidence a Spring of Romance and Not Yet, all about navigating the choppy waters of relationships. 

Gravity Well is a rich, multilayered collection of poetry with much to discover within its pages. I found new things on every reading and know I will continue to do so. An intimate, imaginative portrayal of life, love and loss, told with a singular voice. Rahe picks up on the tiniest details and uses them as his focus, resulting in a unique collection I am happy to recommend. 

The Author:

Marc Rahe is the author of The Smaller Half (Rescue Press, 2010), On Hours (Rescue Press, 2015), and Gravity Well (Rescue Press, 2020). His poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, jubilat, MAKE Literary Magazine, PEN Poetry Series, Sixth Finch, and other literary journals. He lives in Iowa City.