As much as it pains me to admit it, I have never had much facility with poetry. Even as a Master's candidate way back when, I somehow managed to navigate away from serious study of the field. I made my MA thesis and reading list all about fiction and more or less completely ignored poetry even though I'd had to teach a unit one semester.

It wasn't because I didn't like poetry. The secret is revealed after all these years: I was intimidated by it. I found myself awash in swirling waters that threatened to drag me under whenever I was asked or required to study it, or explain it, or create it. Indeed, I felt a niggling jealousy when reading contemporary work whose sharply-drawn imagery and wordplay impressed me with their sophistication and relevance. You see, I could spot it and admire it. To paraphrase the man, I knew good poetry when I read it. I just couldn't explain why it worked, and I sure couldn't emulate it. No, poetry has always eluded me in some way.

In recent years, I've seen work by poets of our field such as Tom Piccirilli, Bruce Boston, and Corinne De Winter that begged for review because they were so damned good. But I was at a loss to describe them. It's safe to say I'll always be intimidated by poetry to some extent, but if I'm not, it will be in part due to Lucy Snyder's Chimeric Machines, a slim book of poems that are somehow so much more. It's not just good poetry, it's great poetry.

Your first clue that these aren't your old English prof's poems is with their titles. As Tom Piccirilli points out in his introduction, the title is "the first hurdle between a writer and reader," and Lucy Snyder has that problem licked. There's hardly a title in the book that doesn't make you wonder something, make you want to know or see: "Trepanation," "Mute Birth," "Worm and Memory," "Permian Basin Blues," "Uncanny Valley Girl," "A Boy's Guide to Neoteny," "The Fish and the Bicycle," and others just as interesting.

Once you delve past the titles in the seven separate sections, you'll be smacked silly by the poignancy, the pain, and the feeling of a life being lived contained in these highly-polished nuggets of sly wisdom. These are not poems for the faint of heart, yet neither are they inaccessible (I can attest to that). They crackle with soul-searing honesty that's often so sharp it makes you hurt all over, yet they're often tempered by humor—dark humor, to be sure—that catches you unawares even in those most serious. Snyder's voice is confident and wry, sardonic and occasionally filled with pent-up frustration, not to say anger. "Babel's Children," for instance, refers to the legendary writer J.N. Williamson's death and abomination of a funeral, and his family's disdain for his career.

For an example of all the above, see also the section "Crete, Kentucky," on the surface a trailer trash soap opera of meth and murder and related mayhem. Read closely, though, and it's hard to miss references to "Luzz," the maze, the bull, the King, "Ari," "Passie Fay," all of which should put you in the mind of Crete rather than Kentucky, though the tone makes it ambiguous and quite funny. On the other hand, "After the Funeral" will rip out your guts. Some stick in your throat like fish bones, such as "Dumb." "Beggars' Night" (with Gary A. Braunbeck) will give you delicious shivers.

As in most good poetry, the images often spring to life on second or third readings, when your mind's become attuned to the poet's voice, her rhythms and her moods. Then you'll find yourself pulled along, your eyes opened. This is what happened to me, the self-confessed poetry-deficient who found himself savoring the very sound of many lines tinged with genius and consummate craftsmanship. Chimeric Machines is a rare gem of a collection, and will assure Lucy Snyder's place as one of the most original voices in our field. As I draft this review, word reaches me that Chimeric Machines has won the Bram Stoker Award for poetry collection . . . it's not often a review can include a congratulatory note, but it's delightful to be able to do so. Lucy Snyder (Spellbent, Sparks and Shadows) has now excelled in the poetry, short story, and novel branches of our field of dark fiction, and it'll be exciting for us all to see what she tackles next.