Review by Lara Lillibridge
A good poem is a fleeting emotion captured and held on a page, then released into the heart of the reader to linger. And as women and mothers, we need that pause in our day to escape our lives, our politics, our families and coworkers and just honor what it is be a mother: wounded, worried, strong and too often alone in our pain. But the poetry reminds us that we are not alone. We are connected to all the other mothers, whether we share their experiences or not. We relate. And Alyssa Sinclair’s Venus Anadyomene gives us that connection.
I appreciated the flow of the chapbook. For example, we have “A prayer” which begins:
Tall angel,
Braid and oil the hair
of my children.
The poem on the mirroring page, “Things said but unsaid by the OB in Dallas” whose first line, “Heels in cold ribbed stirrups” brings us from the love of our children to the impersonality of the doctor’s office. It brought me back to when my own children were new, and my body was broken from childbirth and my heart full of worry and love for them.
Venus Anaduomene is Greek for “Venus, rising from the sea,” and this title informs our reading of the chapbook, which starts with the pain and alone-ness of a c-section. Sinclair’s poetry shines a light on woman as body: hospital patient, dead body pulled from a drainage pipe, younger self molested by strange men. And it also illuminates woman as hopeful, prayerful, situated in nature, part of the earth and sea. Her words reach off the page to remind us of all the other fragile and scared mothers, and bring peace in a chaotic modern world.
Alyssa Lindley Sinclair is a Pushcart-nominated writer and mother of three girls, residing in Dallas Texas. She has a master’s in creative writing and an undergraduate degree in Art History. Her writing has been long-listed for Mslexia’s Women’s Poetry Competition, the Fish Publishing Short Memoir Prize, and won the Dan Hemingway Short Story Prize.
Venus Anadyomene by Alyssa Sinclair
Finishing Line Press, 2025, 23 Pages, 17.99 [paper],
ISBN: 9798888388488
Lara Lillibridge (she/they) is the author of The Truth About Unringing Phones: Essays on Yearning; Mama, Mama, Only Mama: An Irreverent Guide for the Newly Single Parent; and Girlish: Growing Up in a Lesbian Home. Lara is core faculty for Literary Cleveland and holds an MFA from West Virginia Wesleyan College.