Wolf and Pilot (Stahlecker Series Selections)

Wolf and Pilot tells the story of four sisters--Elsianne, Matilda, Emaline and Aubrie--who have run away from their witch-mother. Looming in corners, hiding in holes, living near people, the girls observe the detective on their case, their much-loved teacher, and the witch-mother from a near distance. Through shifting perspectives that fuse together in a collective voice, these poems are grounded in the eerie world of fairy tales and explore that world through a childlike, voyeuristic eye.

"'Girls are prey to everything' in Farrah Field's second book, a dark sequence about twisted domesticity that speaks from an insular, sisterly 'we': 'We are stronger than blackbirds,' Field writes, 'we don't know what anything means we put our/ hands on the cool glass called a window./ Once upon a time all adults used to be children.' People appear and reappear throughout four unnamed sections, becoming haunting figures in silhouette: the detective, the witch/mother, the teacher. Field mimics childhood's flailing attempts at sense making through narrative gestures cut short in favor of whimsical leaps: 'I heard you love falling./ How come dress up the detective doesn't?/ It's a party! It's a date! It's a party!' A little bit bildungsroman, a little bit fairy tale, these poems feel constantly urgent: 'Walking around a grieving household/ makes out ink it could be picked up/ in the palm and put in the oven./ Come on, little house. Say something.' But Field writes, 'We can never be too aware of what's really being said,' and throughout these poems, because we can never become fully privy to sisters' experiences, what's being said could mean wildly different, and powerful, things to different readers." Publishers Weekly Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.