Book Review: Hex & Howl by Simone Muench and Jackie K. White

Hex & Howl, by Simone Muench and Jackie K. White is not simply a book of poems. It is so much more. It is an experience. It is a collection of words that feels like a therapy session, at once profound, searing, and cathartic.

Each piece is set in the shape of a poem, or a sonnet, or a something I’m not smart enough to explain, and each takes one on a journey. Each takes one to a place where nobody wants to go, yet most of us have been. Internalized grief, loss, anger, or repressed frustration. Experiences we’ve not yet managed to unpack so as to unburden our psyches.

And yet, each short piece is unique, a beautiful tribute to the human condition.

As the seasons here in the Northern Hemisphere shift towards autumn, the opening lines of “Coda” resonate with me today:

Fingering old flesh wounds, false starts assail you. It’s autumn. All we invent is another ending. Yellow singes orange scraping the blistered rage. That old palette of ruby rust.

As we all unpack the grief we’ve endured during the past decades, post 9/11, identifying our anguish is key. Or the lost eighteen months since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, finding the source of our pain can allow us to let go. Whatever the cause of our suppressed angst, reading poetry like the poignant works found in this collection, Hex & Howl, we can begin to heal, at least a bit.

Like an invitation to engage, the collection begins with “Duologue”:

Let us rewind and revel / that we are women speaking in the dark.

Let the lungs fill till transparent.

Reach, reach, we want to say / with honey and history, and so the girl feeds the submerged surging: / lacquered, damp and deep pink, pomegranate underneath an autumn-frosted Florida spring.

In a world sketched on a wing, it is difficult not to fall under the spell / but we spin in reverse of every old script and cycle.

Amid wreckage, bed of wet petals, the unsaid / we linger, saying we want more: / the windows are waking us.

This is a beautiful, unusual, collection of twenty-seven pieces of poetry and if you need a push to purge and process, this is an excellent way to start. And if you just love poetry, this is an excellent addition for your collection.

Thank you to Black Lawrence Press for the review copy of this exquisite work.