Fighting is Like a Wife

Using erasure, strike-through, Venn diagrams, and concept maps, the vibrant second collection from Amezcua (From the Inside Quietly) explores the life of world-boxing champion Bobby Chacon and his wife, Valerie Ginn. Drawing from Chacon's own words, the title is the same as that of a 1983 Sports Illustrated article about the fighter that Amezcua pulls from in her own writing: "it's with you/ all the time/ like a wife/ it will know/ if you don't/ treat it right." Chacon becomes addicted to boxing, "to the tang of dried blood on a mouthpiece/ to the scent of beer & cheap cologne that fills the arena on a Saturday night." After unsuccessfully begging Chacon to quit, Ginn dies by suicide at 31. Ginn's perspective is presented in fluid columns that can be read across or down, and that become increasingly fragmented as she descends into "her own ill-desert." Often the poems borrow a quote from an interview with Chacon; in one, blocks of repeating text begin "my wife died because I wouldn't quit" and flip to "I wouldn't quit because my wife died." Using redaction, repetition, and a dizzying variety of concrete poems that are like a literary magic-eye, Amezcua reveals new implications beneath the haunting text. (Apr.)