Book Review

From the beginning, Corey Van Landingham leaves no question as to what big ideas her book, Reader, I, will treat. She introduces us to the text with, “Reader, I was, according to Virgil, always a fickle, unstable thing. Woman. Wyf. Merger of wife and man. To indicate: not-girl. Not-yet-claimed, not-yet-weeping. And aren’t they often weeping?” Van Landingham prepares us for a collection encompassing womanhood and wifehood from a historical, cultural, contemporary, and personal perspective. The allusion to The Aeneid cements the pervading depiction of women throughout history. Meanwhile, the image of a woman “often weeping” is in line with the present-day right-wing dictum that women are “too emotional.” Even across 2,000 years, man’s view of woman hasn’t changed.

Van Landingham’s initial description of “Woman” is reminiscent of Simone de Beauvoir’s definition: woman is “other,” and the object because man is the “seer” and “subject.” Such is the case with Dido and Aeneas.

Exploring the relationship between Virgil’s characters, Van Landingham notes that Aeneas is only significant in relation to Dido. Even Dido can only think about Aeneas as much as she affirms his identity:

In the underworld, Dido [. . .] wants to know if he made her do it, bring her body down, on top of his sword. Was I the cause? he asks. He asks her that. That fickle thing. But she’s so sturdy here. Look at her. She is granite she is dim moon she is dark grove is sea unchartable. She will not return. She will not return his gaze.

Ultimately, it’s Aeneas who comes out all the better. She becomes something greater than Dido, and greater than herself. Dido, meanwhile, can think of nothing more than himself.

“Reader, I [was, according to Virgil]” is the first of many prose poems throughout the collection, all of them titled “Reader, I.” While all these take the form of prose poems, each has a subtle rhyme scheme. Every one can stand on its own, but they work far better as a sequence chronicling a relationship between husband and wife. The book is well-constructed, interspersing the prose poems with other, more experimental free verse pieces, offering a reprieve from the sometimes daunting blocks of text. I would argue the best way to read the book would be in as few sittings as possible. The collection rewards the reader for having each previous poem fresh on the brain.

“Her Thoughts on the Hereafter” is a stand out free verse piece told from the perspective of an Egyptian woman, Amunet, in the afterlife. The poem opens with another criticism men often hurl at women: “It was often remarked, Amunet, you have too many words.” Amunet’s husband points to a dog who “would whine . . .  like you, he said, so like got like—my new friend.” The hound, Menhet, becomes Amunet’s only friend.

Amunet and Menhet are both named after goddesses, distinguished as female by the suffix -et, again emphasizing woman’s place as other. In the poem, Amunet explains she was “named, anyway, after the-invisible-one—silent-winged, asp-headed. // How often he would repeat my name, as if to call me back to it, to crawl inside that quiet. Amunet, Amunet.” Even her name was meant to keep her silent.

While Amunet’s husband had “Artists” to “engrave [his] likeness,” Amunet never even had “one image of [her] alone.” The disparities go on, culminating in heartbreak: “They said we’d come back to this world with all our treasures, but where’s my little dog?”

The free verse poems feel more removed from Van Landingham—more subtle in their autobiography—whereas the “Reader, I” poems give the opposite impression. They make direct contact with the reader right from the outset.

The “Reader, I” poems show the progression of a marriage, from the wedding planning to the sex-crazed honeymoon phase to the personal freedoms a wife gives up. We see a union gradually change, and the reader can’t help but wonder if the relationship is doomed.

And how could one fully analyze a marriage without thinking in generational terms? The prose poems give us a window into the life of the speaker’s parents, as well as the speaker’s confession that she doesn’t want kids. It’s is a heartbreaking revelation for her mother, played with a surprising humor, another strength of the collection.

In “Reader, I [made my mother cry],” the speaker reveals the truth to her mother, but not the full truth. The poem picks up speed as it goes, tumbling to the decision that there will be no children, an admission that omits these devastating facts: “What I couldn’t say: they’d barely get to know her, and dad would be a man we’d tell them lived once. Plus I have so little will most days to stay alive myself. And so she wept. I paid.” The last sentence adds insult to injury, especially when considering the speaker was celebrating her thirty-third birthday.

It’s around the time that the speaker has her own medical issues that her perspective on love and marriage starts to reform. She reaches more mature conclusions than the speaker we see at the beginning of the book and in the honeymoon phase.

The poem “Reader, I [shit the bed]” has a far more literal title than the reader might initially think: “Postprocedure, the white hospital cot bore my stain.” The speaker’s husband shows her grace and service in an hour of pain and embarrassment. The poem ruminates on that love, ending with, “I flashed to us at ninety. And reader? The pain, it dulled.” What a creative and powerful way to portray love and its healing power.

In the following poem, the speaker tells us plainly, “Reader, I am sick of I” which sounds like a silly thing to say in a collection titled Reader, I where almost every poem is also titled “Reader, I.” But unlike Dido in the underworld, the speaker has learned that marriage isn’t all about I.

If there was one potential critique of Reader, I, it would perhaps be its heteronormativity. There is a moment where the speaker contemplates exploring her sexual identity with other women, but that moment is fleeting. In her free verse poems and pieces about fictional, mythical, and historical women, Van Landingham could’ve also touched on gay and bi women from the past. Of course, the book is autobiographical, so I can hardly fault her for taking the approach she did. A reader of any sexuality can still appreciate the collection for everything that it is.

Reader, I, like all the best poetry collections, is one that rewards multiple readings. Through humor, allusion, and creative structure, its poems confront passion, pleasure, pain, and turmoil, to arrive at love, hope, and happiness. It is so refreshing for a piece of literature to end with such a light. Reader, I can’t recommend this collection enough.