Black Observatory, the debut poetry collection from Houston-based Christopher Brean Murray, won the 2021-22 Jake Adam York Prize. Its strikingly surreal imagery fashions situations that are by turns ridiculous and terrifying. The opening poem, "A Welsh Scythe," relentlessly pairs nationalities and tools, reducing to absurdity jingoistic claims of superiority: "I wouldn't think/ of using a Norwegian adz/ or an Austrian sledge unless/ it was clear that a Welsh scythe/ was not available." The 18 couplets of "Hallucinated Landscapes" combine out-of-the-ordinary images with hypnotizing echoes: "Someone finds a spear on a dune at dawn./ …/ Two days drift like ammonia/ under the nostrils of an unconscious waif." Alliteration and assonance draw attention to unusual metaphors; sparse end rhymes bridge the stanzas. "Spartan Gavotte" abounds in strong plosives. Some poems stand out for the sound and word choice; others, for their plots. The speaker in the spooky "The Ghost Writer" occupies the house of a promising writer who died in a car accident. "Abandoned Settlement" spins a similarly frightening scenario, complete with a giant spider.
Much of the verse feels dreamlike--or nightmarish. The creepy White Sands Motel--in the poem of the same name--is empty of guests and inspires peculiar visions: "Last night I dreamt that a man/ was traversing a desert with a glass crutch." Thoughts can be light as clouds or so oppressive as to suffocate. The collection ends with the laugh-out-loud funny "Jaunt to Vermilion": "Recited a psalm outtake. Shook a maraca/ filled with teeth. Bit a lime." This collection is edgy fun for fans of such surrealist poets as Edward Lear and Caroline Bird. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader and blogger at Bookish Beck