Mary-Alice Daniel’s *Mass for Shut-Ins* is the Yale Series of Younger Poets Vol.117, which was selected by award-winning poet Rae Armantrout. ****

There is a dark lyricism to the author’s exploration of the mysticism of religion and culture. The collection proceeds as if in a call out to Dante’s Inferno, with each part a new stop on the descent into the depths of true sociological horror. The entanglement of thoughts and pure, unadulterated feeling covers everything from scripture and superstitions to the kind of deep, cosmic thoughts that haunt you as you lie awake at night.

This collection is a mood that you immerse yourself in. It’s the kind of poems that demand to be read in the dark, in the flicker of a candle flame. It demands little of the reader as it grabs you with its dark and gnarled hand, and pulls you into its depths, and then it slowly immerses your mind in the ideas of spiritual warfare and the questions of modern ritual and spirituality.

Not quite horror poetry, but if you are drawn to the dark and macabre, this collection will sing to you. Highly recommend - some of the best poems I have read in recent years. The ambiance of the darkness truly drew me in.

I was attracted to this poetry collection primarily because of the catchy title and the scorpion on the cover, however the poetry just didn't resonate with me at all in terms of the style/flow and the content. Poetry is very personal, so I'd suggest using the "look inside" or preview function availble on certain online booksellers prior to purchasing.

I was attracted to this poetry collection primarily because of the catchy title and the scorpion on the cover, however the poetry just didn't resonate with me at all in terms of the style/flow and the content. Poetry is very personal, so I'd suggest using the "look inside" or preview function availble on certain online booksellers prior to purchasing.

"Your favourite knife goes missing..."

I don't know what I was expecting with this book, but what I read was so much more. Pastiches of lives led, things observed, and flashes of a thinking brain is what is encased in these words. Prose, poetry, the form seems to flow with whatever the subject matter is - there is no rhyme or reason, just feeling.

The prose is directed at us, at "you", the reader, drawing us into a world that is both familiar and strangely odd - magnified under the lens of the author's experience "You are an outsider scientist on a shoestring budget..." and then brings us into the author's reality, via the use of "I" and slowly moving into "we".

The stream of consciousness of it all is both jarring and refreshing, much like the random thoughts we have day-to-day, and minute-to-minute, there's really no sense to it, and yet it makes all the sense in the world.

Mass for Shut-Ins is a creative and poetic vision of the world. The use of verse to explore self, mythology, and cosmology results in a series of entries to be savored. Evidence that poetry is alive and well as a literary form.

Mass for Shut-Ins reeled me into it in a way I did not expect. Daniel has a knack for creative and emotional prose that I was incredibly fond of. The poems flow seamlessly throughout to weave a multicultural story out of her experiences. Every line felt like a door opening into Daniel's heart and I think that's always what I consider "good" poetry in my book! I will definitely be adding this to my library's collection.

My favorite poems are: "Feel Better", "Ode To Our Unnamed Moon", "Chaos Muppet" and "What The Fresh Hell Is This?"

Very interesting poetry collection! Dark and thrilling full of unhinged deeply personal prose. Beautiful cover and layout as well.

Expected publication date: Mar. 21, 2023 (Yale University Press)

Poetry.

I’m always a little nervous about poetry, because I feel like I don’t know how to read contemporary poetry. But this doesn’t seem to stop me from trying. In this case, I needn’t have worried: Daniel’s poetry is intriguing, and visceral, and does not need an arts education to access. I did find that the notes at the back helped, but perhaps only as an exhibition pamphlet might tell you a bit about the artist’s motivation. The poems have a voice of their own, and will speak directly even to a sceptic (or illiterate) like me.

So you know what to expect: this is poetry that’s dark, and thrilling. I already have snippets, lines playing around in my head, but I know what I will do with this book; I will take it with me the next time I go somewhere unusual, and spend time with its words, to see what new things it will say to me. For now, here are my impressions: hauntedness and ghosts, southern Gothic, the ongoing conversations across the Black Atlantic, death, hell, chaos, and extinction.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Yale University Press for this ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for granting me an advanced digital copy—
I read this in one day which is pretty rare for me nowadays. The words flow beautifully and the poems aren’t long and drawn out. I found myself drifting at times but was pulled back in with certain quotes. There are hidden gems within the pages, and here are two I loved:

“I run a Random Bible Verse generator and turn scripture into policy.
Call it insurance against a God who seems to be “seeing how things go.”

And my favorite—

“I am afraid if sanity’s a choice,
of what in this room I might use to hurt myself and others,
the lack of proper barricading between Us and Empty Space.
Early warning systems had a very serious influence on the formation of my whole heart.”

I think everyone could find something in these lines.
The cover is also stunning.

Thank you netgalley for early access to this work!

I think, sometimes, that modern poetry is lacking something. I see a lot of instagram poets who post a couple of sweet-sounding lines, but their work often doesn't feel like an entire poem. In "Mass for Shut-Ins," I felt that every word, every grammatical choice, and every formatting choice was deliberate. These poems were great to read into. Parts of them were very open and other parts seemed straightforward. I have to say that I enjoyed the first half of the poems a little more than the second half, but overall they were VERY interesting.