In a forest, it’s impossible to take in a lone tree, to trace its branches through the tangle of leaves, competitors, choking vines; it’s like that with the subjects and language of Harmon’s collection Scape. The language of the book is dense and strange: a tangle of branches or roots poking through snow, like the “alliance of branches and leaves” Harmon evokes on the final page.
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The more time you spend with Scape, the more time you want to spend with it. It’s not the most inviting book on first approach (though Black Ocean’s design is up to its usual high standards), but it rewards re-reading. As in the New England woods, you feel lost at first, then fascinated.
Open Letters Monthly reviews Scape, along with Farrah Field's Rising, in the September issue.
