CHRISTYMERRY

Join Christy Merry in the trenches of love where joys, frustrations and despair accompany an arduous journey in her new collection, Don’t Kiss the Messenger. A few prologue poems introduce us to her seasons of love. Though “scarred, beautifically/by Love” she hopes others will still risk seeking it. “What you have at the end is anything but velveteen,” she writes of the magic she anticipates in long-term love, while navigating a world where “lovers are like knife-throwers.” Bridges get burned as she tries to build them. Surprises await the reader especially in her longest and final section (appropriately like a Minnesota winter) where “a faithful heart’s a burden.” Grief, loss, loneliness and the rest of what love leaves behind is not enough, Merry’s words tell us. Yet even as an unstrung rib, this lover will try again and “cheat despair.” Like me, you may want to read these poems more than once.

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