“Anatomy of Failure” is a really great poem. Didn't really understand why there were five different sections, two in which the poems just seemed out of place. That said, some really great poems in here and I'm looking forward to reading more of O'Rourke's work. ( )

This is the second book of poetry I have read by [a:Meghan O'Rourke|57343|Meghan O'Rourke|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1302121405p2/57343.jpg], the first being her most recent, [b:Sun in Days: Poems|34068530|Sun in Days Poems|Meghan O'Rourke|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1487351757s/34068530.jpg|55079117], which was also a chance pick-up at the library for me. I subsequently read her memoir, [b:The Long Goodbye|9499320|The Long Goodbye|Meghan O'Rourke|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1440994569s/9499320.jpg|14384851], about grief and the loss of her mother which is what clinched my somewhat starry-eyed love for Meghan O'Rourke's writings.

Since I completed Halflife in the early part of January, I have gone back and dipped into it a couple of times and revisited a couple of the poems I liked the most. There are a number of them, but, for me, the cycle of poems in section II, titled Still Life Amongst Partial Outlines is one of the best parts of the book.

There are nine poems total, two of which obviously describe the rape of two girls in the woods of Vermont in 1981. One of the girls is murdered and the other girl, who happens to share the same name as the author, Meghan O'Rourke, lived and was able to describe the attackers. O'Rourke writes that for her, reading the newspaper article about this in 1988 was "-a story that could not be forgotten or owned, like looking in a mirror and discovering someone else's face."

Then again, it is possible the whole nine poem cycle is about this incident, the two boys who perpetrated it, the girl who was murdered and the girl who lived. At times I feel some of the poems are autobiographical and that the author's story became intertwined with the earlier one in what became a "There, but for the grace of God, go I." moment for Meghan O'Rourke.

Of all of the poems my personal favorite is VI

When you are a child this is all you have:
rules, mountains, pools, boundaries, magic

that doesn't work. What happened to her
did not happen to you. You were a child,

you were safe, you were not harmed. But
there are fields inside us. They grow.

How do you choose which ones to make room for
under the golden sun, and which ones to lock away.

so that men cannot climb into them at twilight,
vaulting over the iron fence

and landing lightly in the grass?
What happens when you invite what you love

into the field and it will not stay?
Is the grass still green, does it continue to grow like grass?

I can't quite put into words what I understand about this whole cycle of poems. Perhaps, with time and practice, I will be better able to express my insights in a more coherent way. ( )