Praise for Late Summer Ode
"As her fans know, Davis does not specialize in neat and tidy books. Some of her most memorable poems, such as “Francesca Says Too Much” and “Francesca Says More” and “Palimpsest,” convey romantic attraction and abandon with a messy, you-are-there intimacy that seems to push written language beyond its usual borders and into the realm of sensation and sound. She delights in disorder, or she seems to, although when you pay close attention to her work, particularly her sonnets, you find a swing of metrical precision that calls to mind the Metaphysical and Cavalier poets of the 17th century. It’s this balance of rigidity, rhyme and ruin that makes an Olena Kalytiak Davis poem extraordinarily distinct. . . . Davis keeps luring the reader back for a shot of her unmistakably vital flow. The energy of her work hasn’t waned, and you have to wonder whether her poetry is less minor than she thinks. Out of the raw materials of a messy, overripe life there is still juice to be extracted — or, as Davis puts it, still time 'to make something of what is. / then, of what is left.'"—Jeff Gordinier, New York Times
“The lavish latest from Davis delivers poems of spitfire erudition. The sonnet form, rambunctiously reimagined, continues to be the poet’s favored, and few writing in English today do it as well as she: ‘the right words in the right order/ by instinct if you’re lucky.’ With characteristically unfailing aim, the poet outsmarts her own expressions of dread, regret, nostalgia, and ‘joie de death’: ‘Lo, even as I sat in my under/ wear in brooklyn, in sweat and exist/ ential angst on a friday night so hot/ so wrong.’ In one poem, she writes herself off (‘I pronounce/ me done AF’), and then ridicules her poetic virtuosity, ‘so muscular your fucking sonnetry!’ Among the book’s many muses, Berrigan (‘it all lies there inside-out-/ him’) and Rilke are strong presences, as well as Keats, Bishop, and Kendrick Lamar. Letters to old lovers and recollected sexcapades interweave with poems about motherhood and the poet’s two grown children (‘six feet tall/ malnourished sugar addicted’ and ‘I/ bred and warned those would too soon replace me/ don’t join any organized sport fuck crying/ think only what you think no sophistry’). Readers will revel in poems at once astringent and salacious.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Defined by contradiction and balanced between past and present, these poems explore selfhood and place."—Publishers Weekly
“In her fourth poetry collection, Olena Kalytiak Davis, of Anchorage and Brooklyn, New York, has established herself as a major American poet. . . . a great pleasure in the book comes from its lyrical artistry—the way the words play upon one another and the lines form patterns and disruptions of patterns”—Nancy Lord, Anchorage Daily News
Praise for Olena Kalytiak Davis
“The effect is more like being an actor in a play,
moved by the gusts of emotion that move your character, than like being a
member of the audience. This discomfiting proximity, this unsought intimacy, is
the fundamental pleasure of poetry. Davis’s poems plunge us right into the
heart of it.” —The New Yorker
“As the work progresses, Davis toys with the notions
of joy and sorrow, making both emotions newly understandable in the poet’s
unique worldview…Davis offers readers plenty to linger over.” —Publishers
Weekly
“Olena Kalytiak Davis takes intimacy to task,
exploring the sexual modality through a candid inner voice, unyielding in its
dealings with humanity’s need for connection… In Davis’s poems, carnal
knowledge has found its bone, exes mark the spot, and post-confessional
meta-meditations ride the F train.” —Boston Review
“When a new poetry collection by Olena Kalytiak Davis
drops, we expect a revolution…No other contemporary writer has pushed the
relationship between poet, speaker, text, and body quite like Davis.” —Green
Mountain Review
“Of course Davis has been compared to poets like
Sylvia Plath or Anne Sexton for her wildness, for her unapologetic sexiness,
for her metaphorical and rhythmic fortitude, but the comparison is unfair;
Davis is neither of these poets. Instead, Olena K. Davis is of which the Plath
and Sexton would’ve probably been jealous.” —Poetry International
