December 2023 MBR The Poetry Shelf

The Poetry Shelf

No Spare People
Erin Hoover
Black Lawrence Press
https://blacklawrencepress.com
9781625570598, $16.95, PB, 85pp

https://www.amazon.com/No-Spare-People-Erin-Hoover/dp/1625570597

Synopsis: With the publication of "No Spare People", poet and creative writing teacher Erin Hoover uses verse to document the joys and perils of a tiny mother-daughter family navigating life on the margins. From poems about finding autonomy as a queer, unpartnered parent by choice in the South to those chronicling a generation's economic instability, Hoover rejects so-called "acceptable losses" stemming from inequalities of gender, race, and class. With the poems comprising "No Spare People", Hoover asks, what happens to the woman no longer willing to live a lie? How does language invent not only identity, but possibility?

Critique: Eloquent, elegant, deftly crafted, memorable, "No Spare People" will prove to be an especially prized addition to personal, community, and college/university library Contemporary American Poetry collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists.

Editorial Note: Erin Hoover (https://erinhooverpoet.com) is also the author of a previous poetry collection, "Barnburner" won Elixir Press's Antivenom Poetry Award and a Florida Book Award. Originally from Pennsylvania, she lives in rural Tennessee and teaches creative writing at Tennessee Tech.

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