Can it be said that awe is an underappreciated emotion? I’m sure we’ve all got at least one friend that uses “awesome” as if it were going out of style (and let’s face it; it probably is and should). But I am talking about awe – that spine-shaking, finger-twitching, pupil-dilating experience of magnitude beyond one’s self. It is a sensation that ignites fight and flight. It is, maybe, the purest form of excitement, that moment balancing on a knife’s edge between dread and desire. Or, maybe, it is that knife’s edge splitting us in two, letting our halves drown in both extremes. I suspect that our current cultural lack of appreciation may have something to do with pride. Our egos get in the way, convincing us that humility is the same as weakness. Even when we are afraid of the awesome thing before us, our pride often blinds us to its full scale and potential of meaning.

and at the edge of the twenty-first century / anew
Narcissus and his double / clasped together / verging
on asphyxia / in rigid water /
locked / enclosed in green glass:
a Siamese fetus / in a test
tube /

These are the immediate thoughts I am left with after finishing Materia Prima, a collection of the poetry of Amanda Berenguer, one of Uruguay’s most renowned poets. This is the kind of text that you want to encourage egotistical people, especially those saturated in toxic masculinity, to sit down and just read. It is a beautiful, surreal read, almost oxymoronic. It is at once calm and intense enough to boil your marrow; it possesses the kind of fearlessness that can only be earned through facing true fear. If you’ve read any of my work on this website, then you know I have a deep-seeded attachment to the metaphysical, the cosmic, and the existential. Berenguer’s work plays those strings like a true maestra as she guides you through what I can only imagine was her own existential reckoning, and does so not as condescending instruction but as an invaluable lesson to the rest of us.

the gesture suspended adrift / taking measure of the world’s door / in the lapse / of thought’s pause / the exposed piercing amnesia shines / the Milky Way unknown.

“Materia prima” is a phrase from alchemy, referring to the concept of a base form of matter. It is, theoretically, the substance out of which all other matter is formed. It was largely dismissed as a concept when physics and chemistry overtook alchemy as the sensible branches of science. But the concept still exists; “materia prima” is still one of the holy grails of physics, even if the label is no longer used, and the search for it led to the discovery of the atom, the proton, the electron, the neutron, the quark, the neutrino, and still pushes the cutting edge of science to this day. Why am I explaining all of this? Because this is my review, and damnit if I am not going to spend a paragraph nerding out and talking about how amazing the choice of title is. Berenguer uses “Materia Prima” as the title for one of her more famous works, and editors Kristin Dykstra and Kent Johnson use it as the title for the collection, and I could not be happier. The concept connects on so many levels. It represents the connecting element of the largest and smallest scales, and resonates with us, we supposedly insignificant specks in time seeking deeper meaning in an unfathomably huge cosmos. It represents the eternal quest of the writer, trying to use beautifully imperfect language to reverse engineer sapient emotion and experience. It represents the effort of taking control of one’s own ego, breaking down all the constituent nonsense and hypocrisies and appreciating your scale and value as both what they are and what they could be. And the poetry of this collection is full of such explorations.

La Amaranta cree que es Madonna / y que lleva en sus brazos tatuados / un corazon verde como la luz de un semaforo. / San Jorge y Michael Jackson se le confunden.

For all of its impact on the conceptual side, Materia Prima does not disappoint on the technical side. Berenguer, continuing in her wonderfully deceptive contradictions, is both highly experimental and intimately structured. Some poems are akin to word searches or mathematical graphs. Others, like “Trazo” (Outline), use multiple text colors to create poetry within poetry in a way that is almost disturbingly elegant and simple. Still others, like “A Study in Wrinkles”, read almost alike prose poetry. On a very direct level, this means that the pacing of the text is enticingly variable. Each turn of the page has a reliable chance to bring innovation and a change in perspective. And yet, amidst all of that, Berenguer’s poetic voice is surprisingly consistent. The calmness I mentioned earlier is present throughout, even in moments of exhilaration, fear, or sadness. It is not calm in that it lacks emotions, or feels them in a stunted way. Rather, it is the calmness of letting yourself fully experience something, submitting to something powerful, knowing full well that you too are powerful and will emerge on the other side.

The notion of the divine / centers on a reality that is efficient / yet superhuman – whose mystery satisfies / darkness and infinitude. There’s neither blasphemy nor condemnation – there is poetry – word written – in the present / traveling across time.

For all the excitement this book stirs in me, it is something of a meditative experience. It is a strangely refreshing reminder that peace need not be stagnant or lacking in vitality. So often we are sold on the promise of conflict as the vehicle for inspiration and adrenaline. And, to be sure, Materia Prima does more than its fair share of wrestling with conflict. But there is a harmony here that I didn’t know I’d been missing. Or that I’d needed. I love most every book that I review (I wouldn’t be reviewing it here otherwise), but this is one that will likely go into my yearly rotation of things that require a return journey.

Materia Prima is available now through Ugly Duckling Presse.