by Danielle Hanson

Situated in the natural lushness of the American South and discussing a range of family dynamics, Laura Isabela Amsel’s A Brief History of Sting and Sweet delivers on both the sting and the sweet.

The core subject matter of these poems is family tumult—a cold and abusive father, cancer, raising children, the dissolution of marriage—yet there’s no hint of melodrama; instead, Amsel’s vulnerability encourages connection. Take “First Born,” a poem about becoming a mother:

   Looped cord cut free, bagged, he began—
his brown eyes jaundiced moon-yellow. He’d stutter at five,

refuse to wear shoes half his life. Dressed in anything
tight, he’d cry. Sock-seams overloaded his senses. He roams now,

looking for loose, running from confines—Bulgaria, Thailand.
He wears Tevas in winter to give his toes room.

As much as family, however, the poems also writhe with nature—snakes, salamanders, butterflies, frogs, squirrels, and plants crowd the scene and frequently suggest truths about human life. “Naming Moons” explores a sweet family tradition about full moons, while “Father” details the killing and pinning of butterflies and “Owls” portrays nature as an escape: “One leads the other follows / and I forget to breathe.” Elsewhere, the scar left from a mastectomy is referred to as “tender stem,” while salamanders are “sacred” because their scarcity. In later poems, the speaker finds solace in spring:

Don’t make me beg you, April.
God knows my knees ache
enough already. See me groveling
in March mud, raving,
staving spade holes
with cold fingers, jabbing
zinnia seeds in each.

In addition to using strong imagery, Amsel excels in her playfulness with language. “Listening for Something as a Girl, 1970” is filled with short i sounds and rhymes that speed up the poem and carry the reader away:

My vigilance is visceral;
there is no freeze in me.
I am all ear-swivel
and twitch, amygdala
and head hitch, tail
switch and quick shit,
adrenaline and flinch.

A Brief Campaign of Sting and Sweet brings us the lovely, the terrifying, and the sad experiences of family life, but in making them all connected to the natural world, it tones down the highs and modifies the lows into something more manageable. We are all part of this world, it seems to suggest—and it’s going to be okay.