Amanda Deutch, New York Ironweed

 

wild anemone

her

her me

let it go

spftly on the

cement

a ta[estr

 

loetf

bvehh

pppajjd

light bulb

ljje

with

within

Winner of the Ottoline Prize and published through Fence Books is Coney Island, New York poet and publisher Amanda Deutch’s full-length debut, the book-length collage New York Ironweed (Astoria NY: Fence Books, 2026), a title that follows an array of poetry chapbooks (including a version of this particular manuscript via above/ground press). As the author writes as part of the notes at the back of the collection: “All of the poems in new york ironweed take their titles from names of New York City weeds, wildflowers, native plants, and trees. The poems began during the new moon in January 2023.” New York Ironweed presents itself as forty-eight clipped lyric assemblages each named for a different plant, with poem-titles such as “common crown vetch,” “purslane,” “seaside goldenrod” and “hellebore.” Through Deutch’s poem-list of plants, language bleeds and shimmers, offering delightful collisions of sound and meaning while referencing climate and environmental response. “you know what they // say // thy sy // dontcha?” she writes, as part of “field bindweed,” “plant the seed // who cares // on the television // they all talk // and so do you [.]” There’s a delightful way her poems run down each page (enough that I would be quite curious to hear how some of these poems might be to hear), a thread of sorts, pulled, sometimes into a visual garble, one that almost reads akin to hitting the wrong keys while sending a text. Through Deutch, the suggestion of error remains the correct response. “once went wondering // oit om the woods,” begins “blanket flower,” “orange / hellow // wht an automatic // corsage [.]”

There’s that infamous line by New York School poet Frank O’Hara (1926-1966), from the title poem of his 1957 collection Meditations in an Emergency: “One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes—I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there’s a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life.” Whereas Deutch is very much a New York poet, or really, a Coney Island poet, closer to the manner of Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-1921) through working to articulate a particular landscape, Deutch does through the foundation of the foliage itself, entirely the opposite of O’Hara. The foundations of her poems are the plants themselves, with human activity forcing its own way through to interfere. As part of the poem “eastern redbud” writes:

when the rain so

doesn’t stop

and you are on an island

archipelago

not of our imagination

and you have lived on an

other island with no radio

but similar weather

with another I

the sea was not ours

not mine

at all when I was over there

but here it is

now

This is very much a botanical book—of direct responses to plants via climate, language and sound riffs—very different than the garden-specific Garden Physic by Saskatchewan poet Sylvia Legris (New Directions, 2021) [see my review of such here], Ottawa poet Monty Reid’s twelve-month cycle, The Garden (Ottawa ON: Chaudiere Books, 2014), or Montreal poet Stephanie Bolster’s examination of formal gardens in A Page from the Wonders of Life on Earth (London ON: Brick Books, 2011) [see my review of such here]. One might even see Deutch’s language comparable more to the enormous play across the late Canadian poet bpNichol’s posthumously-produced organ music: parts of an autobiography (Windsor ON: Black Moss Press, 2012) [see my review of such here], writing poems from a list of subject-based poem-titles that circle a central core, while utilizing that title purely as poem-anchor, allowing the pieces themselves enormous lyric freedom. Across short bursts, Deutch articulates the ways in which plants and human activity connect and intersect across the synaptic space of narrative, while just as much purposefully mangling narrative via forms of visual sound. “sometimes all // and everything you // can do is,” she writes, as part of “white turtlehead,” “open your palms // and say thank // you [.]” Certainly, one can make a comparison to Legris’ title, but this almost seems quite directly a botanical book, akin to those Canadian author and naturalist Catherine Parr Trail (1802-1899) used to produce, although worked through a clipped and even boiled-down lyric blend of sound, staccato and visual play. “stretch marks. streets. cracks. // so many 90s // taxis // wack // and then scarcity // until right now,” begins the poem “purslane.” Is this a book one might be able to use as a field guide while wandering through a cavalcade of New York City foliage? I would say so, yes.

field horsetail

don’t tell me

to be someone’s mother

someone’s wife

I scrub my own pots

since the dinosaurs

I eat what I want

and look

see?

can you?

this is more than enough

I say that without edges

with softness

and surrender

sunning my face