Refusal

"In Refusal, her searing new collection of poetry, Jenny Molberg draws on elements of the surreal-invented hospitals, the Demogorgon of Dungeons & Dragons, an Ophelia character who refuses suicide-to investigate trauma, addiction, and patriarchal forces of oppression. This confrontational collection examines societal, cultural, and personal gaslighting in situations of domestic abuse. "Love and hate simultaneously is the trick of abuse," writes Molberg, "and the trick of abuse is a vexation of the mind." A sequence of epistolary poems looks to friendship as a safe haven from violent romantic relationships, while a series of poems on a mother's struggle with addiction addresses the complicated nature of a parent-child relationship affected by alcoholism. Refusal seeks to break silences, following the #MeToo movement, and to interrogate a cultural misogyny that weighs heavily on a woman's position in the world"--