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Article: Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods.(Book review)
- Article from:
- Harvard Review
- Article date:
- June 1, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 Harvard Review. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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INCIDENT AT THE EDGE OF BAYONET WOODS
by Paula Bohince
Sarabande Books/2008/$14.95 PAPER/ISBN 9781932511628
Paula Bohince's debut collection, Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods, ranks among the darkest and most disturbing books of poetry published in this country in the last decade. The pitchfork tines on the cover suggest both the latent menace in the title and a detail of Grant Wood's painting, American Gothic. It's unclear how much irony, if any, is intended by this, but the subjects and settings of these poems are certainly stalwarts of the gothic: rape, incest, murder, suicide, collapsed and abandoned coal mines, ruined barns, an ...