Lorna Crozier “The Wrong Cat” Review
By Victoria Pulvidente
Lorna Crozier’s The Wrong Cat takes on a couple of themes that are displayed throughout her poetry in this new collection. These themes are nature, animals and relationships. Each theme that is explored has some repetition (of some) of the same images that are revealed in the different poems. For nature there are the repeating images of the moon, rain and body, for animals there are the crows, cats, and other random birds. The poems here seem to have a "relationship" theme. They are either between a man and a woman or a man and an animal or man and something in nature.
Crozier’s poetry is captivating; she draws the reader in with all her descriptions and imagery. In her poem “Book Of Small Mistakes” there is so much description that the reader can literally picture every single flaw of her husband down to a tee. She writes, “...he leaves crumbs on the breadboard every morning, doesn’t tighten the cap on the toothpaste tube, doesn’t replace the toilet paper when it runs out.” This description among others in her poetry attracts the readers’ eyes and minds, through the minutiae of everyday.
Crozier effectively divides her poetry into four different sections with a poem written in italics before each section begins. She also presents poems in both long and short form throughout each section of the book. Along with themes and repetition she also uses similes and personification. In her poem “The Beginning Of Abstractions” she writes, “Raindrops shivered as they touched her face…” this line portrays both simile and personification all in one little line. This line jumped out the most since it is a unusual and original way to describe rain hitting someone’s face. Another example of simile and personification in the same line is in Crozier’s poem “January”. She writes, “It tips and spills a wash of rose, each tree in the grove flushed like skin from a bath, the heat held minutes later.” She successfully uses these literary devices to bring the reader into another world through her poetry.
“The Wrong Cat” is recommended to others that enjoy a well-written book filled with poetry, striking images, and great detail . It will appeal to a great range of audiences and seems like it will definitely succeed in the literary marketplace.
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Victoria Pulvidente is currently a sophomore English major with a concentration in creative writing and also a minor in Internet Studies Communications at Endicott College. She is an editor on the Endicott Review the school's literary magazine and she also writes creative pieces for the Endicott Observer the schools newspaper. She loves to read and write and hopes to work in the publishing industry and write her own novels in the near future.
