Review by Jami Macarty
Henrietta Goodman’s Antillia explores innocence, guilt, and the haunting specters of the past. The collection’s title references a mythical island, symbolizing both “the inaccessible” and the elusive nature of truth and self. Goodman’s lyric-narrative poems examine aspects of female identity and maternal grief.
Haunted by her son and various romantic partners, Goodman shares the complexities of these relationships, offering a candid examination of love and regret. She examines the “boys who get stuck, / who die or sleep in a chair in their mother’s / basement” and dissects “all the slapping and deception /…keeping score,” with a voice that is both lamenting and liberating. The collection’s strength lies in the air-clearing confrontations between past and present selves.
Through these portraits of “another me,” Goodman tells us of the loss of her son and allows readers to witness the intertwining of innocence and guilt in her exploration of maternal grief. In the opening poem, “The Puppy and Kitten Channel,” the poet uses a proxy to ask, “Do you ever feel completely ruined?” Through rhetorical inquiry, free association, and tracing the origins of the words “we use / to defend, or forgive” Goodman reveals their capacity for pain and solace.
At the heart of Antillia lies a lake that reflects “Delight,” “Death,” “Time,” and “Hope,” suggesting a dynamic relationship between self-portraiture and memory. Goodman reflects on the impossibility of reclaiming the past while acknowledging the potential for understanding within our memories: “So many years / I’ve wondered what it said, why it seems / so easy and so impossible to put back.”
In Antillia, Henrietta Goodman reminds us of the malleability of memory and how it shapes our present, emphasizing that “there’s no one / back there controlling any of this.” This collection is an eloquent testament to female resilience, maternal love, and grief’s burden — haunting and ultimately liberating.
Antillia by Henrietta Goodman. The Backwaters Press, March 2024.
Reviewer bio: Jami Macarty is the author of The Long Now Conditions Permit, winner of the 2023 Test Site Poetry Series Prize (forthcoming University of Nevada Press), and The Minuses (Center for Literary Publishing, 2020), winner of the 2020 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award – Poetry Arizona. Jami’s four chapbooks include The Whole Catastrophe (Vallum Chapbook Series, 2024) and Mind of Spring (Vallum Chapbook Series, 2017), winner of the 2017 Vallum Chapbook Award. To learn more about Jami’s writing, editing, and teaching practices, visit her author website.
