Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods

Where Radio Fails - "In static, four kit foxes turn their alert faces/ toward the underbrush where they flicker,/ orange as candlelight." This poem caught my attention with these first three lines. When I saw the word "static" I immediately thought of falling rain being like static on a tv ,and also sounding the same. I also like the way this poem juxtaposes the idea of something as artificial as a radio with the pure, natural scene. I especially liked the lines "Weird cables of the sycamore rattle./ And if the interference of finches on those self-same branches" which really help the metaphor by comparing trees to cables and the finches' song to radio waves.

Toward Happiness - The language of this poem was interesting and I think it does a good job of capturing the feeling of nostalgia. The poem seems to recount a memory that isn't that pleasant, when her father "stormed off , jaw tight with disgust / at my incompetence" and "asking if the shutters were cut / and sanded, feeling my hands to see / if I was lying," yet concludes with "This is happiness."

I also liked her innovations with words like "fallingness" in "Silhouette" and "goddamming" in "The Gospel According to Lucas," they flow naturally with her poetry and they don't feel contrived.

Overall Paula Bohince's poetry was an interesting read with an enjoyable theme, although some parts were a bit opaque.