Reviewed by Carol Barrett
Splitting Open the World by Carolyn Martin
The Poetry Box, 2025, 95 pages, $18.00
ISBN 978-1-956285-93-2
Available with free S/H at [email protected]
Carolyn Martin’s sixth book of poems claims its title from a famous quotation by Muriel Rukeyser: “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.” Martin has courageously taken up the dare, startling us with the truths about her life. The first institution she tackles is the family; the second, the Church. Her poems erode notions of sanctity on both fronts.
She describes a New Jersey upbringing mired in financial challenges, racism, and alcohol. In “Minor History” she acknowledges––but tries to downplay––the kinds of abuse she experienced:
Who can forget the moment when the first slap
turned into two turned into a twisted arm
into a violent purple bruise into a burn
for revenge that turned every word frown
glance into a spray of gasoline?
This is not your story you assure yourself
yours a history of minor events like one soft swat
on the rear when you dissed your father
for forgotten milk and shared the fear
of your mother’s rage or like the bruising edge
of her subtly shaming words about baby fat …
Even a school dignitary adds to her burden, as she reveals in “Dear Shame,”:
We’ve been friends ever since
my high school principal
called me to the stage
and bragged to the girls’ assembly,
“This is how a chubby girl
wears the uniform properly.”
As an eighteen-year-old, Martin enters the convent, but ultimately leaves after almost twenty years. In “Directions” she confesses:
…Jersey stars
witnessed how poverty and obedience embraced me easily,
how even God didn’t have the grace to hint that love, a curiosity,
would tatter chastity and land me here in Oregon – decades after
breaking covenants I banked my journey on …
Even farther outside the scripted boundaries of the Church, she has chosen to love a woman.
A secondary ambition of these poems is to work through the relationship with the poet’s mother, a dominant figure whose own abuse history leaves her scarred. Martin’s approach is unflinching. In “My Mother’s Scars,” she lays bare the hands damaged at age two:
The lie: a pot of boiling candy
cooling on the front step.
The truth: a broiling backyard still
and a toddler’s curiosity.
The aftermath: Twelve surgeries.
One pinkie stub. One finger bent.
One drunken father’s rage. One mother’s regret.
Despite Martin’s childhood fondness for blue jeans and sandlot baseball, her mother insists on making dresses to clothe her in the feminine role. The two maintain a cantankerous relationship, her mother only able to verbally express love for her daughter in old age. When the mother dies, grief is so consuming that when Martin is caught waiting on a terrible traffic accident to be resolved, she imagines she has caused it. In “Casualty”:
She shouts apologies
to the drivers cursing
the delay, tries
to explain how her mind,
mangling tears with regret,
swerved toward
the New Jersey grave
where her mother’s ashes
stir beneath the autumn sun.
That’s where I was, she cries
frantically to campers/cars/SUVs,
over flares of aggravation and prayers.
Finally, this book provides a third platform for poems. This is Martin’s dedication to observing humanity, sometimes finding a charming quirkiness in the ways we manage to contend with harsh realities. Interspersed among the heavier poems are nuggets that make us smile in recognition. We indulge in “Sunday Morning at Costco.” We stop to catalogue moments of gratitude in “I Am Indebted.” We watch ordinary people and birds and dogs with amusement in “Sightings.” In “Addendum: Progress,” the poet concludes her life review with this promise:
Prepped to glide though my ninth decade, I’m free to play
in the rampant bounty of gardens and poetry.
No debt. Freezer full. Questioning certitudes,
countering with a sturdy voice. Free to stand
outside myself and revel in ecstasy.
We should all be so ready to engage life!
Reviewer’s Bio