Hard Lines and Startling Verse: A Review of Bianca Stone's Poetry Comics from the Book of Hours

Softcover: 88 pages
Publisher: Louisiana State University Press (January 20, 2016)
Purchase: @ LSU Press
Review by Rhiannon Thorne
Bianca Stone's Poetry Comics from the Book of Hours is a striking hybrid between traditional comics and lyrical verse. Included are fifteen works, many of which have previously appeared online in journals but are now stunningly printed on glossy paper. This collection is a must-have for Stone fans. At times grotesque and surreal, the work is nevertheless tender and expresses great emotional intelligence.
It's hard to imagine the images without the words, or the poetry without the art, as each lends to and tampers the other. “Waltzing with You”, a love poem, is translated by Stone's harsh lines from a vulnerable free-verse poem:
I WANT TO OPEN
THE MOUTH GOD GAVE YOU,
BEAUTIFUL MUTANT.
CAN YOU
SEE ME IN
THE DUSK,
ASKING NOTHING
OF IT?
I FEEL SENTIMENTAL
I FEEL LIKE CAPTAIN JANEWAY
WATCHING A
PLANET
IMPLODE
WHEN YOU SIT DOWN
AT YOUR DESK
PLAYING YOUR LIVE-FEED
VIDEO GAME
YOU'RE REALLY
DOING A WALTZ.
AND ME, AT MY DESK,
I FOLLOW YOUR LEAD
AND SMOKE A CIGARETTE
OVER YOUR SHOULDER...
into a dreamy and earthy atmosphere with a distinctly feminist quality:
Janeway of Star Trek's USS Voyager makes a seamless pop culture appearance in several pieces included in Poetry Comics from the Book of Hours, which for those familiar with the series, underscores Stone's commanding female strength and warmly juxtaposes her absurdist work. In “Because You Love You Come Apart,” Janeway narrates a second-person series of “endless reflections of your friends,”
and, with her ever-present coffee, reminds us that:
The dead;
They are still listening.
They want to be loved.
They want
to be remembered correctly
Full of both tilted and full-bleed panels in mixed media—some black and white, others color or selective color—this is a collection which quickly shifts from one startling page to the next. The reader is introduced, through its illustrated dreamscape, to anthropomorphic animals, human houses, saintly characters, and faceless or near faceless individuals who move through a shocking mix of backdrops and blank space. Yet, it remains tethered to a deeply human center, grappling with friendship, love, loss, and a remarkable reclamation of sentiment.
The dead;
They are still listening.
They want to be loved.
They want
to be remembered correctly
Full of both tilted and full-bleed panels in mixed media—some black and white, others color or selective color—this is a collection which quickly shifts from one startling page to the next. The reader is introduced, through its illustrated dreamscape, to anthropomorphic animals, human houses, saintly characters, and faceless or near faceless individuals who move through a shocking mix of backdrops and blank space. Yet, it remains tethered to a deeply human center, grappling with friendship, love, loss, and a remarkable reclamation of sentiment.

BIANCA STONE is a poet and visual artist. She is the author of Someone Else’s Wedding Vows (Tin House/Octopus Books, 2014) and several poetry and poetry comic chapbooks, including I Saw The Devil With His Needlework (Argos Books, 2012), and I Want To Open The Mouth God Gave You, Beautiful Mutant (Factory Hollow Press, 2012). She is also the contributing artist of Antigonick, a special edition collaboration with Anne Carson published by New Directions in 2012. Bianca is the editor of Monk Books, a small press that publishes limited-edition chapbooks of poetry and art, full length books, and books connected with her job as chair of the Ruth Stone Foundation, an organization based in Vermont and Brooklyn, NY. Her full length collection of poetry comics, Poetry Comics from the Book of Hours, was published in 2016 from Pleiades Books.