Review by Jami Macarty
The poems in Sullivan Summer’s chapbook Performance Anxiety examine the many roles society imposes — and expects us to play. Our guide is a self-described “adopted Black daughter,” leading us through poems shaped by “complex culture.” While society claims to value “progress” and “perspective,” Summer reminds us in “The Truth in American Fiction” that we still “cast villains” and exploit those we claim to protect.
The chapbook is arranged as a dramatis personae, introducing us to a cast of fifteen: the Adoptive Mother, Coroner, Corpse, Daughter, FBI Agent, Husband, Nail Tech, Police Officer, and others. These characters each inhabit scenes of violence, dismissal, and trauma. At the center stands our “Star of the Show,” the survivor who’s lived to share her story.
Summer asserts her agency — she is “the woman / herself who decided whether she remained anonymous and silent.” In a powerful feminist act, she breaks that silence and emerges from the hostile places where she “had been.” Fittingly, her poetic forms are experimental, hybrid, and distinct.
One standout poem, “Five Parables of Mothers or Daughters,” meditates on four-letter words and their “connotations.” Singular words — “more,” “need,” “less,” “self” — anchor the poem’s exploration of the line between performance and real political action. The poem is a call to action disguised as parable.
In Performance Anxiety, Sullivan Summer invites us to witness more than just stories of survival — she calls on us to question the scripts we accept in our own lives. Through her willingness to unsettle, she exposes the tension between “lust and loathing,” “appropriation and appreciation,” borrowed roles and the truths we risk telling.
Performance Anxiety by Sullivan Summer. Black Sunflowers Poetry Press, June 2025.
Reviewer bio: Jami Macarty is the author of The Long Now Conditions Permit, winner of the 2023 Test Site Poetry Series Prize (University of Nevada Press, 2025), and The Minuses (Center for Literary Publishing, 2020), winner of the 2020 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award – Poetry Arizona. Macarty’s four chapbooks include The Whole Catastrophe (Vallum Chapbook Series, 2024), 2025 finalist for the bpNichol Award.
