Crushing It
Jennifer L. Knox
Reviewed by Kate Davis
In a time where communication is fraught with complications, Jennifer L. Knox’s ambitious sixth collection, aptly titled Crushing It, explores the delicacy and complexity of human connection. Her poems feature speakers struggling to get their point across, explorations of the true crime genre, confrontations of pop culture icons, and consequences of trusting the ego. Despite this, the collection maintains cohesion through Knox’s engaging, nuanced, and sometimes downright funny voice. “I don’t want to brag, but I’m pretty sure / I got the highest score ever on the ADHD test,” the speaker of the title poem states with self-assured (though uncertain) confidence.
With this voice, Knox’s poems traverse space and time to bring us a collection of poems which are both expansive and surreal as well as intimately autobiographical. “I’m surprised how long it takes / her heart to stop. Strong old girl” Knox states in “Abby, the Comedian,” a poem about the death of a dog rescued from abusive conditions. It is in these tender moments of autobiography that the reader recognizes the humor of Knox’s voice stems from deep contemplations on grief as well as understanding the difficulty of connection in an inherently unfair world: “Abby distrusted our laughter and its source / Joy was a strange bird she’d never trust / or try to catch.” Knox’s voice is capable of both deep reverence (“I imagine / you crashing through the inaugural barricades / flying a stolen helicopter”) and irreverence (“I’m sorry about this poem. I’m so embarrassed”) and it is this balancing act which allows the poems to reflect the difficulty of truly understanding the nuanced ways in which language and the ego both compel and fail us.
Knox’s collection, however, is not without judgement: “An airplane crash / begins not in birds, but in the feeders we’ve stolen the seed from, / certain nobody can see us.” Throughout the collection, Knox explores the Anthropocene and the ways in which human involvement has led to the destruction of the environment: “the fire / that wipes the city out begins in birthday candles and the happy / huff behind them” Knox declares in “Irwin Allen Versus the Lion Tamer.” The collection’s surrealist turns and twists allow Knox to explore not only the consequences of our choices, but a range of landscapes, individuals, and subject matters with her assertive and daring voice that makes for a fascinating read.