Startle Pattern

Poetry. "Heavenly joy means growing backwards," Szporluk tells readers early in STARTLE PATTERN, foreshadowing the tilting path of her collection. Haunted by visions of loss and the ongoing violence of the body, these poems unfold like memories through time as personal tragedies become dark fairy tales. STARTLE PATTERN illustrates that a passing of years does not create healing: that pain, after fully seizing the physical, bleeds into the psyche.