Wolf Daughter, by Amy Watkins
Pink roses reach up and around the unclothed body of a girl, her eyes hidden by a thick, tilted cloud. The hare she holds has closed its eyes. It’s a striking image for Wolf Daughter, the latest chapbook by Amy Watkins, and fittingly, the illustrator is Watkins’ daughter, Alice Copeland. The alluring, muted colors may lead you to believe you are entering a realm where young women lack necessary rage. Think again.
The dedication, “for Alice,” is a whisper, and the book is a battle cry. These eighteen poems, neatly numbered, are nothing less than a mother’s love made palatable and exposed for the reader.
The chapbook opens with, “My daughter says, ‘I don’t remember how / not to be a wolf.’” And here we are immediately thrown into the raw extended metaphor where girls grow fangs. The clash of mother/daughter, of animal/social creature, of child becoming an adolescent—this clash tangles throughout lines grounded again and again in the material world of malls and school dances. As a reader, I am brought back to my own struggle as a young girl, when I felt primal and weak and full of an anger I could not name. When the speaker says, “‘I think it’s hard being alive in this world’” there is no explanation needed. I receive the wisdom when Watkins writes, that if all else fails, “Find a mind for violence.”
Watkins is no stranger to the concentrated energy a chapbook creates. Her two previous chapbooks have found publication at the presses Bottlecap Press and Yellow Flag. She has also lectured at Full Sail University on creating and publishing chapbooks. Wolf Daughter proves the ability of a chapbook to construct an entire world. Watkins has distilled and expanded her subject matter simultaneously. We are never lost in her hands.
Wolf Daughter does not apologize for its animal nature. Instead, it ends with, “She comes and goes with such confidence. / Even her long teeth gleam.” Which is what we need—a society where girls can wear their rage proudly, openly. Watkins has given voice to the young girls’ war song. May it be heeded.
Wolf Daughter by Amy Watkins
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 978-1-939675-96-5
Published by: Sundress Publications
Cost: Free
Pages: 23
Available: http://www.sundresspublications.com/wolfdaughter.pdf
Amy Watkins is the author of three poetry chapbooks (Milk & Water, Lucky, and Wolf Daughter), a graduate of the Spalding University MFA in Writing, and a parent of a human girl. Find her online at RedLionSq.com or @amykwatkins on Twitter. She lives in Orlando, Florida.
Risa Denenberg is the curator at The Poetry Cafe.
She is a co-founder and editor at Headmistress Press and has published three full length collections of poetry, most recently, slight faith (MoonPath Press, 2018).
The Poetry Cafe 