Grace and Poison

Melanie Marttila is a Sudbury-based freelance writer and writing
consultant.

Grace and Poison brings together Karen Connelly’s The Small Words in
My Body and The Disorder of Love. Small Words, winner of the Pat Lowther
Prize, was written during Connelly’s teenage years. Here one can see
the seeds of what will become The Disorder of Love. Together, the two
works represent the poet’s songs of innocence and experience.

In the preface, Connelly discusses the life events that became the
basis of both books: her departure from home at the age of 15, her
studies in Thailand at 17, her travels in Europe. There is a distinctly
musical quality to Connelly’s work. We see in her poems the music and
color of the cultures she encountered in her travels. We also learn how
those cultures changed her both as a person and as a poet.

The poet’s metaphors are elegant, finely honed instruments. In poems
like “Autopsy of a Strange Bright Creature,” the language is stark
and clinical, yet fascinating. Connelly’s lush, resonant words are to
be shared and savored.