You might not be advised to buy a book for its cover, but the same can’t be said about its title. Consider the title of Heidi Kasa’s first book of poetry, published by Mouthfeel Press: The Bullet Takes Forever. In seven syllables, Kasa’s title conjures a wide swath of loss, both vertical and horizonal, the catastrophic consequences of gun violence, robbing us of time and life itself.
Consider the power wielded by the prototypical word “take” to state the obvious: a word with more than fifty meanings, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Also, among the first words we learn to spell as children. How the title lands is a fine indicator of the way Kasa’s poems will strike the courageous reader, the reader willing to dwell on a time in this space dedicated to examining violence, delivered more than not upon the most vulnerable among us.
Some of the poems speak for themselves, such as the list poem titled “Back to School Shopping List 2024,” beginning with “1. backpack (big enough to hide behind)”—and then progressing as time would progress: “2. notebook (for reunification records)” and “7. spelling test (words: tourniquet, instructions, wound, direct, manual, pressure).”
One cannot help but observe that narrative poems are few, likely because the reader can provide the narrative. Reading Kasa’s gun poems triggers the narratives that have lived for decades in our minds and hearts and bodies. We know the story. We have been living the story.
The post Poems Wherein the Bullet Speaks: A Review of Heidi Kasa’s ‘The Bullet Takes Forever’ appeared first on Ms. Magazine.
