Glitter Road

O’Neil’s ruminative fourth collection (after Rewilding) explores the triumphs and traumas of daily life. The author’s journey to Mississippi from the Northeast after the death of a partner is central, mixing with memory in the opening poem, “Autopsy”: “you looked at me like a stranger, already estranged from this life to the next./ This is not an elegy or an apology, the lungs taking in too much water—/ this is a memory coming up for air.” Reflections on present joys are laced with the heartache of the South’s brutal past. Much of the book is dedicated to the tragic story of Emmett Till, a young Black teen who was lynched in 1955. Place becomes a character: “At Mississippi’s crossroads,/ I’ve come to see what’s left,/ what’s remained unclaimed for decades: cypress, palmetto, tupelo, river birch./ To love the magnolia and lament the smell. This place is not finished with me.” In “On the Edge of a Field in Summer,” the speaker remarks: “I break off a branch/ to feel trauma in my hands—a reminder that I have risked so little to be here,/ not even the shirt off my back.” These poems memorably navigate the braiding of love, tragedy, resilience, and parenthood. (Feb.)