Incident at The Edge of Bayonet Woods

Paula Bohince’s “Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods” is stunning. Rarely does a book of poems possess both rich, achingly beautiful imagery and the suspense of a mystery novel. Each poem, like a patch on a quilt, reveals a piece of the story behind the narrator’s father’s murder, however, despite the gruesome subject of the book, Bohince’s work maintains a soft, solemn and unnervingly hushed atmosphere. The narrator also relies more on images to speak of her past and her feelings towards her father than narration, although the book is very much about her own emotional journey. In the first section, the reader is introduced to the setting, a quiet farm in Pennsylvania, through such images as “cloud-like sheep”, pastures, “rattling sycamores”, crabapples and fish. In the second and third sections, the narrator “begins with a paper bag” and introduces her father, the suspects for his murder and their motives and her childhood. However, Bohince seems not as concerned with ‘plot’ as she does with images, and memory. The environment around her is characterized, (for example she writes, “the stubble of weeds waiting for some emotion to occupy it”, and instead of expressing her literal feelings of frustration she “quarrels with rocks”). She also infuses Biblical imagery into her literary landscape, the allusions deepening and enriching her material. Much is left unsaid when it comes to the narrative itself, but the reader does not mind. The author is mimicking memory-what man or woman truly remembers or knows anything completely? I personally felt the need to go back and re-read this thin book…some of the images were too lovely to skim over just to finish the story. Bohince gives her book more momentum with the murder plot, however, the wrenchingly gorgeous imagery and honest emotion in each poem make “Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods” a work of art.
(Bohince masterfully makes use of adjectives, verbs and metaphors . Favorite examples include: Clothed by bristle, fingers like spigots, cursive of my father’s burning cigarette, fused eyelids).