‘Showstopping’
— Hannah Cohen
glass and the way it can resemble her own voice
I love poems that interact with the reader while existing and owning its own dimension, which is what attracts me to this newest poem in The Ellis Review. We all have our connotations of drama and theatre, and with a title like ‘Showstopping’, there’s no illusion about what what will be presented on the page, and it’s refreshing to have a title reveal and obscure the poem’s story.
With the blank space swinging between sets of words and sentences, the pauses serve as an acrobatic link to the visceral and vulnerable contortions of the “damsel on a / track … rope-burned”. The commanding dark humor of “folks you won’t want to miss this” next to the physical “she bats those / pretty lashes” is the most satisfying aspect of this poem, with an equally satisfying cliffhanger of a final line.