the whole Marie

Barbara Maloutas

“What I find individual and unusual about Maloutas is the candid roughness and methodical awkwardness of her voice; she is more interested in language as exploration than she is in turning out lovely, audience-pleasing lines. I have often heard her read her work (we attend the same workshops and readings in Los Angeles); she reads quietly and self-effacingly, determined not to perform, and yet her writing has quite a bit of life on the page:

Who I am doesn’t matter.
I am the least invested

in the construction. It is
after all a project.
For better or for worse

it does not include everyone
and least of all
strangers who are not invested at all.

“[ . . . ] The poems in the whole Marie—complex and rewarding, ascetic and sonorous—do not yield all their pleasures in one reading, but must be explored again and again, as is the case with most good poetry. But intricate as they are, they are not merely poems for the page; in spite of what the author herself might say, I believe these pieces can and should be read out loud so that all their textures and meanings can be opened up and appreciated. The poems in this volume offer a glimpse into a first-rate imagination and intellect: fireworks are on display here, in their own quiet way.” —from the review in Rattle by Alex M. Frankel (read the entire review here)