Steven Turrill

Clothes for Monstrous Children Steven Turrill

Like looking under a rock for bugs, Clothes for Monstrous Children offers the reader a mass of squirming, scuttling, slimy, many-legged and hard-shelled, scurrying beetle-like lifeforms that don't appreciate being seen in the bright light of day thank you very much. Close the book. They may try to crawl out, but they prefer the dark where it's safe. Put the rock back please. The underground tunnels that connect this world to another are filled with insects, spiders, and centipedes, and at the mouth of the tunnel entrance, on either side, sit lizards and toads, guards of the threshold. There too sits an author, Steven Turrill, drinking and drugged and talking to whomever will listen. In this, his fifth collection of poetry, Turrill wrestles more with intoxication. In his delirium, he thrusts his arms into the tunnel groping for a scrap of something to call beautiful. He pulls out handfuls of worms.