A Wife Is a Hope Chest: Poems: The Mineral Point Poetry Series, #5

By Christine Brandel

"In these surreal lyrics, romantic love is a repository for emotions sweet, bitter, and blazing. Brandel's language— rich with visual and tactile imagery—delivers us into a world where domestic objects transform into amorous talismans." —Kiki Petrosino, author of Hymn for the Black Terrific and Witch Wife

Brandel's formally structured lyrics, as carefully arranged as a chest packed with tissue paper and clove oranges, lure and invite the reader with beauty and craft, then hiss and coil and buzz with needled wit and blade flashes of human insight. These are poems Emily Dickinson would have delighted in and sent daringly to friends. This is a collection where six lines and twelve words in a poem about a teakettle sear and brand so hot, the reader finds relief in the white space on the page. Domestic objects are both weapons of war and charms of love, often simultaneously, and the cycle of poems circling around each presented object — kettle, snapshot, penknife, coins, silence, book, and skeleton key — work both as a dance and the creeping threat of a predator pack.

A Wife Is a Hope Chest demonstrates brilliant facility with form and capacious understanding of the capabilities of plain-language verse. This is a poet's poetry collection, even as it is a volume that invites any reader to become infected with its unforgettable imagery, pointed humor, and dark charm.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brain Mill Press
• Release date: Oct 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781942083801

Christine Brandel

Christine Brandel is a writer and photographer. Her work has recently appeared in Callisto, Public Pool, Under the Rader, Blue Fifth Review, and The Fem. She also writes a column on comedy for PopMatters and rights the world’s wrongs via her character Agatha Whitt-Wellington (Miss) at Everyone Needs An Algonquin. She currently lives in Bloomington, Indiana, where she teaches at a community college and serves as a hospice volunteer.

Book preview

Some of the poems in this collection first appeared in the following publications and are reprinted here with permission:

An August I Knew, Roundyhouse (UK), 2005.

The Beauty of Men, Spinning Jenny (US), 1999.

Biting the Rind, The Interpreter’s House (UK), 2006.

The Blackmailer’s Lesson, Staple (UK), 2006.

A Book, Theories of HER (Mercurial Noodle, US), 2016.

Butterfly Collecting, Poems-For-All no. 1095 (US), 2014.

Chelsea, American Writing (US), 1993.

Cinematic, Bluepepper (Australia), 2014.

The Clock, Your Face, Poetry Monthly (UK), 2003.

The Cock and Pride, Pearl (US), 2000.

Cotton Wool, Open Thought Vortex (US), 2017.

Fill This Out, Moodswing 21 (UK), 2007.

He Chose Forgiveness, The Fem (US), 2016.

He Was White Rose, OVS Magazine (US), 2013.

Her Photographs, Imitation Fruit (US), 2010.

Her Strange, Meat for Tea (US), 2014.

It Took Eleven Books, Theories of HER (Mercurial Noodle, US), 2016.

Life Line, Hermeneutic Chaos Literary Journal (US), 2014.

The Little One, Stand Magazine (UK), 2008.

Martyrdom, Hermeneutic Chaos Literary Journal (US), 2014.

My Body, GTK Journal (US), 2015.

The Nestling, Open Thought Vortex (US), 2017.

An Open Letter on the Nature of Love, Staple (UK), 2006.

Owning Up to Angelica, Iris (US), 2002.

Place, Cur.ren.cy (US), 2012.

Red, The Gambler (US), 2014.

A Request, Stand Magazine (UK), 2008.

She Is Like a Piece of Bedrock, Under the Radar (UK), 2016.

She Made Five Mistakes, Rain Dog (UK), 2003.

She’s Turning It Around, Obsessed with Pipework (UK), 2003.

Sixteen Pieces, Superstition Review (US), 2014.

Some Secrets Are Meant To Stay Quiet, The Missing Slate (UK), 2012.