Norma Desmond descends the staircase (again)

From Edward Hopper paintings to Sunset Boulevard, poet Karen Rigby re-appropriates our cultural imagery, and imagines it for us again

By Katie Haegele
Published: January 3rd, 2009 | 12:00am

In her second poetry chapbook “Savage Machinery,” young poet Karen Rigby, who was granted a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, shows off a talent for making the iconic intimate, drawing connections between the monoliths of culture and ourselves. Within a collection of just 18 short poems, Rigby looks at paintings by Edward Hopper and designs by da Vinci. She even visits Adam and Eve in the Garden, where she finds the collection's title, a reference to the brutal workings of the world we live in.

Her senses attuned to a certain brand of dark wit, Rigby treats us to "Norma Desmond Descending the Staircase as Salome." Here, she takes the perspective of Sunset Boulevard's main character, a cracked-up former silent screen actress, as she portrays the woman who requested a man's head on a platter. “In that kohl-rimmed prime / I could live forever / raising my own hand to my neck / each time surprised by its cool pulse.” The poem peers out at us through the layers, scares us a little.

At times these poems are too ambitious; they want answers to life's Big Questions. But in their best moments, they relax a little and let us enjoy the show. Lines like "a matchbook / missing half its lashes” lend us a poet’s eyes for seeing things strangely, for which we thank Rigby.

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ABOUT THE BOOK

Savage Machinery (Finishing Line Press)

By Karen Rigby

$11.50