Pulse, Maria Nazos
Omnidawn Publishing, 2026
The latest from American poet and translator Maria Nazos, and the first I’ve seen of her work, is the poetry collection Pulse (Oakland CA: Omnidawn, 2026), a suite of sharp, pinpoint first-person lyric articulations around gesture, meditative flailing, swirling reflection and passionate resolve. She writes through elegy and grace on where she’s been, what she’s seen, and how she got there, and how, against all odds, she possibly got back. “Today, we’ll wake up again and drink pineapple juice / spiked with Bacardi,” she writes, to open the poem “Expatriate’s Pantoum,” “then curl up in a hammock. / We’ll do another line, then you’ll play me more Bruce, / then we’ll cash another unemployment check.” Her author biography includes an array of experience, much of which is referenced throughout this collection: “Maria has worked almost every job imaginable, including as a whale watch boat attendant, table dancer, barista, sunglass salesperson, bartender, and probably the worst waitress in the entire history of the Eastern seaboard. If she spilled Pinot Noir on you, she apologizes.” These poems are gestural, but not performative, relaying stories as they occurred, and as surprised as you are, seemingly, that she made it through, although her fortitude and resolve are certainly evident.
Each poem is the result of a layered thickness, with so much packed in, writing on maturity, lost loves and errant youth, abuse and self-abuse. “Need to come home to a man with grease on his hands / who will feel my quiet regret.” closes the short poem “Designer’s Remorse,” “Until the flowers tremble so hard in their water. And the crystal / in the finest of lenses breaks.” Nazos offers moments of witness, of clarity and empathy, including for those that might never otherwise find it. “Everything falls across the sea.” she writes, as part of “Waitress in a Small-Town Seaside Tavern,” “She lowers the lights; now the bar’s dark too, / she brings us another round of whiskeys. / Now her bruise looks less black, more blue, // with the lights lowered—the bar’s dark too— / so we can hardly see the mark, / her bruse looks less black and more blue.” Through a subtle adherence to rhythms, poetic form and the occasional rhyme, there are narrative lyric trails here almost comparable to the lyric of Saskatchewan poet Karen Solie, as Nazos’ wayward trails derail a bit more wild, less calm remove, writing joy and pulse and loss at a far different, even propulsive, speed. Reflecting on and referencing a working class sequence of shitty jobs, lost opportunities and questionable decisions, Nazos writes of passion, heartbreak and as often, a lack of opportunity. Just as much, these are poems on agency and survival, the thread that ties them all together. As the opening poem, “Ars Poetica,” begins:
Is it not enough to write
about the empty bottles, any more
than the space between them?
not enough to write
about the gritty underside
of the barroom table, how easily I slid
(like the mind slides in
the early morning), in and out
of strangers’ beds. But when
did poetry dictate that it’s not enough
to write about the man I love
pressed against me in bed,
sticky as rock candy
after his work? since when did I tell myself
That I couldn’t write
about the scattered lights
in New York, or about
when I stood at the lip of a cliff overlooking
Delphi, while the ground
beneath me hummed?
rob mclennan is a person, place or thing. His latest poetry collection is edgeless (Caitlin Press, 2026). His prior collection, the book of sentences (University of Calgary Press, 2025), is currently up for the Archibald Lampman Award, which might be his seventh time up for this particular award, making him, most likely, the Diane Warren of the Archibald Lampman Award.
