A Victorian Dollhousing Ceremony by Kristin Garth

A Victorian Dollhousing Ceremony Reviews

• 
  Alex Smith

  
  Vast in its profound detail, ‘A Victorian Dollhousing Ceremony’ from the burgeoning press Rhythm and Bones, seeks to meld the dying of magic with the threads of our own trauma. With an impressive back catalogue from luminaries such as Effy Winter and Kate Garrett, the press has now sought to unite three of its leading lights in this ambitious and expansive journey into the wizened magic within all of us. Trauma is a well. Here, it is transformed into something so tiny in circumference, so fleeting in time, yet so bottomless in profundity, so boundless in creativity.
  A quote from Ibsen sets the tone for the collection and his dichotomous silhouette flits under the doorframes in the rooms of this particular doll’s house.
  Karcher’s ‘The Wizard’ sets the scene. We find ourselves anchored by the concrete of his words and the repeated mantra of ‘here’. In a world so lost in the strain and anxiety of ‘what if?’ the poet asks where is here? Such gravity counteracts the more abstract impressions you may have formed. Karcher grounds us in ‘bathtub bones’ and ‘deaf dandelions’, before we leap with slippered feet into the quiet majesty of Garth’s creation, Doll, and the febrile delicacy of Hansen’s Firebird. All their experiences ‘found in leaves’, ‘A flood of memories drowned in wine.’
  The poems barrel on from here, punctuated by subtle yet harrowing crescendos. There are too many to mention but Hansen’s ‘Pirouette’ has her protagonist reaching for a horizontal sky, recumbent with bloodied dancer’s feet. Anything for his pleasure. Garth provides a pithy riposte – her nightmarish vision of some child-woman shrunk into a Victorian dollhouse sneers out of the curl of the page, aching, ‘...to be pitied at thirteen’. The rawness and tactile imagery of Garth’s poetry provide a childlike voice that is almost a younger version of the more abstract, obtuse work of Hansen. This is the core of most sections. The most vital moments in this collection come not from the symmetry of the metre or form the deftness of the dance, but from the stichomythic exchanges of voice that speak for the panorama of human trauma and the potential for beauty encapsulated within it.
  Karcher’s Wizard often sets the tone for the sections contained within the collection. His earthy, calloused language and languid, McCarthyesque lines lend the more mercurial imagery an anchor. A counterpoint to ‘...suck up their dreams like a motel pillow.’ The dirt and silt of his voice is the inescapable echo of the everyday that the Doll and the Firebird seek to escape.
  As the three disparate voices begin to mingle and intertwine through the latter stages of this collection, we catch glimpses of their real selves, through the eyes of the others; their shifting visages dropping like kaleidoscope sands. After all, one man’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist. One man’s Wizard is another man’s...well you’ll have to read the collection to find that out. It may be a door in this house of self-perception that you don’t want to open.
  Each poem is a vignette; a tiny window into suffering and the potential that suffering brings. The collection itself is a shifting reflection of the faces we wear and the dances we perform for each other. All good art holds a mirror up to the world. This art is deeper than that. It’s a well. Dive in.
  
  
• 
  Tucker

  A haunted tale of learning — or being compelled — to dance. An opera told in poems in three voices.
  
  "Appeasement is the strategy you take.
  They're carnivores, and you serve them cake."
  - The Doll, "The Ladies are Waiting"
  
  "one sip of the elixir and it begins —
  watching her shrink beneath his dark spell
  you sip your drink and smile, imagine
  the sparkling lights as you dance onstage..."
  - The Firebird, "Imagine: Dancing Solo"
  
  "now there's a woman in the basement dancing with herself as if in a trance
  I gave her a single rose and I don't know why..."
  - The Wizard, "Orphan Dust, Stardust and Angel Dust"
  
  The characters seem trapped in a dream, fighting and reflecting each other, trying to grasp what they are inevitably becoming.
• 
  Phil Yff

  “Omne trium perfectum" (everything that is three is perfect). According to the Latin dictum, it is inevitable a provocative collection of poetry meticulously crafted around the rule of three would be sublime. A Victorian Dollhousing Ceremony is a “poetic opera.” It has drama. It has energy. It has emotion. It is perfect. It earns a five star rating.
  
  Three poets collaborate on this masterpiece—Justin Karcher (The Wizard), Kristin Garth (The Doll), and Tianna G. Hansen (The Firebird) [listed in order of appearance]. The collection is a cohesive whole beginning with the metaphorical birth of each character. The conflict between them is apparent from the start, and it is inevitable sparks will fly.
  
  Fire is the unifying motif. Its flames interweave between the poetic declarations of the three characters. One might categorize the weighty utterings of the Wizard as Homeric, the Doll’s sonnets as artifice, and the lyric constructs of the Firebird as dance. Each poem is a gem. But these are not polished pastoral jewels but uncut stones seething with raw emotions. Their impact is visceral.
  
  Behind the beauty of image and language lurks a seedy underbelly. The Wizard is the antagonist very much aware of his own iniquity. The desires of Doll and Firebird are vulnerabilities to be exploited—and they are. The book is divided into 13 sections or ceremonies and explores a wide spectrum of abuse. The poets craft their rough gemstones—each cut revealing a fresh facet to sear the soul.
  
  Form is important. Each character has a unique style. Each character departs from that style on occasion. When the Doll speaks in something other than a sonnet, one takes notice. When the Wizard abandons his normal weighty declarations and utters a 14 line sonnet variation, it has impact. When the Firebird adopts a more ponderous tone in lieu of her normal light grace, it makes an impression.
  
  The poems, in thirteen ceremonies, are superbly contained in the unifying artistic vision of the poetic opera. The three characters—Wizard, Doll, and Firebird—each elaborate with ‘arias’ reflecting their varied moods—malevolent, fearful, angry, sad, angry, contemplative, combative, and so on.
  
  Unlike an opera, there will be no inevitable jubilant climax to celebrate. This is not a fairy tale. It does not end with “happily ever after” but with “gray ash.” Readers are not allowed to escape with a glowing sense of well-being, but must reflect upon the darker side of human nature. There is much to contemplate long after the last page is read.
• 
  Norb Aikin

  Loved this...a brilliant concept! Three poets with distinct styles seamlessly weave together a story equal parts cerebral and heartbreaking. Worthy of multiple rereads, because it feels like it'll give you a little something else with each read.
• 
  Jessica Drake-Thomas

  his is a dark fantasy, comprised of poems which fit together to form an operatic narrative collection, told in three voices: the Wizard, the Doll, and the Firebird.
  
  The Doll and the Firebird are two rival dancers. The Wizard is an individual with magical talents and an obsession for collecting those who he deems perfect in a misguided attempt to “protect” what is good in the world. The Wizard sees the Doll at a party, and becomes obsessed with her. The Firebird wants the Doll out of the way, so she can be the prima ballerina, and also gain the Wizard’s affections. The Firebird and the Magician team up, luring the Doll to a party at the Wizard’s home, where they give her a potion which shrinks her. They then trap her inside of a dollhouse. The Firebird, jealous of the Magician’s obsession with the Doll, returns to the Magician’s house, where she becomes trapped in the basement. The Firebird realizes that to ensure her own survival, then the Doll must die.
  
  The Doll, written by Kristin Garth, is still very much alive and sentient. She’s aware of everything that’s going on around her. “The shame is of the season./ The art is in the ache./You found a childish skeleton./ I wasn’t hard to break,” she says, right after she becomes trapped. She’s a broken character from the beginning of the book, where she talks about her childhood, during which she was abused. The risk here, was that the Doll could have easily become a helpless figure, waiting to be saved. However, she grows despite the static nature of being a doll. Ultimately, it’s the Doll’s capacity for love which causes her to reach a state of enlightenment and freedom by the end.
  
  The Firebird, written by Tianna G. Hansen, is wonderfully catty. She has a lifelong penchant for arson, which she seems to love as much as she does dance. She aches for love, even as she becomes a destructive force through her jealousy. She’s manipulative and cunning, and is fascinating to read. Despite the fact that she’s always talking about not ever having what she wants, she’s probably the character with the most agency because she’s willing to sacrifice others in her pursuit of getting what she wants. There’s no line that she isn’t willing to cross. “Crackling and sparking, popping heat & bones/ hair furling flames, hissing Medusa snakes/ eyes are stone, blue ice condemns foes/ you splinter into shards of red-hot glass/ a creature caged/ cannot be kept. You will be Free. You will,” she says, and as the reader, you believe her. You can hear it in her voice: The Firebird is a force of nature.
  
  The Wizard, written by Justin Karcher, is essentially the stage-setter. He’s the one character who looks outward, and describes the world in which they live. “it bores me to tears when other people want to make the world a bigger place/ seems to me that they’re simply settling for a bigger grave/ death shouldn’t get any bigger, understand me?” he says, right before he decides to recreate the world on a smaller scale, through the doll house. He views the world in which he lives as toxic. He appears to drift through it, finding it to lack anything that he finds fulfilling. While he believes that he’s protecting the the Doll, the one character who is good, he’s doing it, ultimately, at her expense. There’s a difference between protection and imprisonment that he doesn’t seem to be aware of. Despite being learned in magic, he hasn’t become wise, instead, he’s jaded. I’d compare him to Saruman, but to be honest, he makes Saruman seem like a cupcake. At one point, in a moment of clarity and self-awareness, he asks, “Am I a sociopath?” Which, given his lack of empathy and his inability to see the value in societal rules (like not imprisoning others), he definitely is. However, just like the Doll, he too, has a moment of enlightenment, which proves that his character has the ability to grow.
  
  A Victorian Dollhousing Ceremony is written by a trifecta of talented poets who have created an intriguing, original work. This is a stunning fever dream, set in an urban wasteland full of boozy magic-drenched parties and sociopaths who are able to use magic to make the world a much worse place than it already is. It’s about female rivalry. It’s about male desire to possess. It’s about the perception of perfection, as well as the effects of trauma. I’ve never read anything quite like it, but it’s positively spellbinding.
• 
  Briar Page

  The idea of a "poetic opera" is brilliant, and I'm honestly giving this five stars instead of four because (to the best of my knowledge) it pioneers the form and concept. If you are reading this review without having read A VICTORIAN DOLLHOUSING CEREMONY or knowing what it is, it's a kind of dark fairy tale novella told entirely in poetry by three different poets, each taking on the voice of one of the story's three principal characters. Authors Hansen, Garth, and Karcher have very different writing styles, which makes the Doll, Firebird, and Wizard immediately distinctive and adds a very interesting texture to the narrative. The effect isn't dissimilar to listening to different voices harmonizing, exchanging solos, and occasionally clashing in an opera, musical, or-- let me be real about the things I'm actually likely to listen to here-- a very ambitious concept album. It also makes it difficult to skim, or move through the poems too quickly, which I think is vital. The (not actually complicated) plot isn't *really* the point here-- this is more a mythified exploration of the emotional territory of trauma, rape, abuse, love, envy, suicide, guilt, mania, and loneliness-- but it will make a lot more sense to a very careful close reader.
  Anyway, the ending is suitably dramatic, tragic, and romantic for an opera, some of these poems are strong enough (and not-context-dependent enough) to stand extremely well all on their own (my personal favorite and go-to example would be Karcher's "Oscar Wilde Performs Surgery on the Wizard"), and above all, I hope this is a type of storytelling and collaborative writing (and maybe performance?) that catches on!*
  
  
  
  
  *fellow poets who wanna collaborate & have similar taste in fiction/aesthetics to mine, hmu
  
  
  UPDATE (June 10, 2020): This book was published by Ms. Hansen's small press, Rhythm & Bones. Recently, Ms. Hansen apparently shut down her press after several people came forward to allege that she had acted unprofessionally as an editor and publisher, bullied them, and consistently enabled a serial sexual harasser who was both a personal friend of hers and an employee (?) of the press. I do not have all the details on this situation, and I'm not going to pretend I can speak for anybody involved, but suffice it to say, it seems like a real clusterfuck, and I'm sure it will affect the availability of this book! I stand by this review: I think this is a work with overall artistic merit, and the formal concept is brilliant. I hope that Mr. Karcher and Ms. Garth will be able to re-publish their poems from AVDC, particularly since many of their AVDC poems stand strong on their own without the narrative framework. I hope that Ms. Hansen is able to get her life together and find a more low-profile, low-responsibility occupation, since it seems she may not have the integrity or maturity to run a press.