Description
When a local teen drowns and comes back as more river than girl, it dawns on residents that there is something very wrong in Steubenville. Emma Sloan’s debut chapbook, Opheliac, intertwines modern mythology and one of literature’s most enduring figures, Shakespeare’s Ophelia–using both as a vessel to explore betrayal and grief. It is a collection that wields evocative language, intertwining narratives, and the framing of the gothic American South to instill a thoughtful melancholy that lasts long after the last page has been turned.
GIRL TONGUE
no more breaking in the word sorry ‘til it’s tired, no more only rearing when tread on, no more gunshot-soft one-night stands, no more hoarding words like sharp things during a manic episode, no more repurposing your throat for vomiting, no more maybe he’s not guilty, he seemed like a nice kid, no more scraping your tongue bleeding-raw in the shower, no more faux smiles in the courtroom, no more no more no more no more no more girl tongue, pry it out with nail clippers, flush it down the toilet like your childhood fish, sprout a replacement that’s more cobra than garden snake.
