Little Savage

Rating:
Summary: "Little Savage" reminds us of what is civilized, what not
Review: Emily Fragos is our ambassador from the world of close, close attention being paid. Too often we rush by the best and worst of our human-ness, which is where the really interesting stuff is hidden. Poems like these remind us of what poetry is for--every line is under intense psychic pressure, there is not a shred of sentimentality, and not a word is wasted. "Severe" is not usually a word used as praise, but here it is very apt. "Little Savage" is wonderful.

Rating:
Summary: Wondrous
Review: Emily Fragos' wonderous "Little Savage" is the best argument I've ever read not to rush out a first book. It's clearly the work of a poet who's honed her ideas and art over time. The poems arrive as perfectly polished as stones shaped by a river.

Rating:
Summary: Little Savage: Great Beauty
Review: What is most remarkable about Emily Fragos' poetry is the clear emotional throughline in each poem. Fragos guides the reader into a field of feeling that unfolds with increasing intensity. For example,

With a stick I drew stick faces in the hardened
ground, touching my people
with the long, cold finger,
rubbing the lines so they turned to crust
and weathered away like the oak
outside my window.
(Solstice)

The poems explore a variety of emotional registers, from contemplative to jaunty, but whatever the mood, they are transportation to a unique world of sensibility offering glimplses of paintings by Velasquez, Vermeer, Brueghel, the music of Gould, Callas, Scarlatti, the whimsy of personified of Sorrow & the quotidian sublimity of an overdue library book or a cat show. All thngs become magical in Fragos' hands.