Ivanna Baranova, CONFIRMATION BIAS

somewhere in me

exists

a so-called

original urge

to align

with the astral

body

    but then

i see

all planetary

anatomy

aspiring

to life eternal

among the galaxies

regardless

    home to u-turns

cultural autopsies

and finite

emancipations

of this social

imaginary

    but baby

if not

hopeful

then really

what

should i be? (“glow stick”)

I’m struck by the rhythms displayed throughout Brooklyn-based poet and photographer Ivanna Baranova’s full-length poetry debut, CONFIRMATION BIAS (Montreal QC: Metatron Press, 2019), a compelling, measured and meditative series of threads that unspool with such delightful cadence. “you always / want to be / the fucking foucault / of public spaces,” she writes, in the poem “neon,” adding: “not here [.]” Set in five numbered sections, her poems read like lyric monologues, stretched and stretched out, held together by cadence, accumulation and the constant questioning of where and what one should be. She writes as witness, critic and relentless seeker, exploring power structures, capitalism and environmental collapse, moving seamlessly from abstract to the specific, and attempting as much the appropriate questions as she is the possibility of answers. “how can i // ask you // to max me // out in a way // that’s edgy?” she writes, to open the poem “aloe,” continuing, further on: “i lose // and make the money // spend the money // become // the money // all so // you’ll keep me // in your pocket [.]” I very much like the ways in which her meditations and narratives wander, drift and flow, enjoying the momentum but still curious to see where it all might lead. The poems here are deceptively powerful, wonderfully understated and confident in their curiosity and their poise.