Want, the Lake, Jenny Factor's long, intricate second poetry collection, envisions womanhood as a tug of war between desire and constraint. "If want is a lake, I learned to sail in it," she writes, recalling her time as a girl at summer camp--until later life restricted her cravings.
Factor (Unraveling at the Name) showcases the tension between past and present, license and limit. Two poems titled "Elegy for a Younger Self" string together vivid reminiscences. "The Modern Lotus Eaters" subverts Alfred, Lord Tennyson by expressing ravenousness for memories: "We eat to remember, not forget/ .../ for only what we eat, we keep." A retelling of the Snow White and Rose Red fairy tale warns against reckless yearning, pairing an echo of a Robert Frost line--"Something there is that does not love a bear skin coat"--with effulgent alliteration: "Its fur a friction of fitness and finesse/ Its fugacity sleek as water's."
In "Sapphics on Nursing" and verses from the section titled "there is no end to it," romantic friendships edge toward homoeroticism. In this context, heterosexual marriage and motherhood represent either delightful intimacy or a snare. The challenges are to preserve selfhood in a partnership ("Two planets, in their rotations, whose orbits bless one another") and balance caution and freedom in parenting ("one hand pushes you forward, while the/ other is all stop sign").
Allusion and experience, slant rhymes and wordplay ("Not peaceful.../ but piecemeal"; "dazed and days") craft a lavish tapestry of topics related to women's stories. Eschewing the temptations of anxiety, perfectionism, and somnambulism, Factor inspires by choosing the "lived life." --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader and blogger at Bookish Beck