Pages: 74
Publisher: New Binary Press
Released: 2013
Dog Eared Review by Lindsey Lewis Smithson (review contributor)
Unexplained Fevers is Jeannine Hall Gailey’s third poetry collection, after Becoming the Villainess and She Returns to the Floating World. Here she reimagines many classic princesses and fairy tales as realistic humans operating in the modern world.
Poems like “Sleeping Beauty Has An MRI,” “A True Princess Bruises,” and “Things I Learned In Waiting Rooms,” place princesses in modern day medical peril that is reminiscent to their fairy tale dilemmas. Instead of the pristine women readers expect though, the ones who overcome their problems with the help of men, these women have only their own inner strength as an aid. Other poems are similar to “In Which Jack And Jill Decide Whether To Climb Yet Another Hill” and “Seascape,” where the characters have more power over their situations.
For the most part the concept works; it is an immersive and realistic collection that doesn’t rely too much on its fairy tale origins. There are a few poems that lean heavily on the artifice and as such the reader can feel the strain. Oddly there are also a handful of poems entirely devoid of the fairy tale aspect, which makes me question their inclusion. Despite these drawbacks Gailey’s poems are a nice break from the confessional style books that often get published and would be worth spending an afternoon with on a warm day.
Dog Eared Pages:
10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 33, 34, 35, 37, 40, 41, 43, 46, 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 60, 63, 65, 69, 71, 74
Lindsey Lewis Smithson is the Editor of Straight Forward Poetry. Some of her poetry has appeared on The Nervous Breakdown, This Zine Will Change Your Life, The Cossack Review, and Every Writer’s Resource: Everyday Poems.
Has laoreet percipitur ad. Vide interesset in mei, no his legimus verterem. Et nostrum imperdiet appellantur usu, mnesarchum referrentur id vim.
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