Theories on Wreckage by Kanika Lawton

Theories on Wreckage Reviews

• 
  Tuhin Bhowal

  Could not really get through a set of 10 poems. It is sad to see that many times, the idea of form in poetry among young poets (appending any sort of age adjective before 'poet' is a matter of grave concern, anyway) gets reduced to the arrangement of words visually on a page. That is anything but form.
• 
  Tyler Pufpaff

  In Theories on Wreckage, the narrator lets us in spaces they think they do not exist. “I pull at the corner of my mouth until I curl a / crooked smile, force her to see that I am fine and / I am well.", exuding a thematic struggle of being something they are not. The poems swell for the reader, like a lit match devouring, aching, until posed with: “What do you do when the mirror before you / reflects a home you’ve never known? / Break it.”— it is here that the collection engulfs but it is not the only match left to light.
• 
  Sarah “Sam”

  Kanika Lawton’s “Theories on Wreckage” provides an intense emotional exploration, moving seamlessly through different forms of poetry. The writing lingers on moments of embodiment— “cheek”, “eye”, “lungs” to ground the language of pain, passion, and longing. Reading through this book’s pages was a delight and a heart wrenching experience in turn, reading with the sincerity of a confessional and the lyricism of a song.