A Curious Hunger

The poems in Marcia LeBeau’s debut collection, A Curious Hunger, deal with the tension between marriage and temptation, parenthood and purpose, disability and inclusion, sexual assault and resilience. LeBeau tackles difficult subjects with an unflinchingly honest and energetic voice.

In the title poem of her debut collection, LeBeau admits that she wants to be “as popular as a spoon,” that ubiquitous bit of cutlery always first to empty out of the drawer, the one guaranteed to “cause a stir” (a nice example of her cleverness with language). She chooses Team Spoon most of all for “the beauty / of the tool” and for the “Evidence of the artist, the dreamer, the crazy cook— / the one who understands our curious hunger.” LeBeau is all those things, who not only understands our (sometimes not quite licit) hungers, but is not afraid to express them, unflinchingly.  She warns of “Temptation” in the poem that inspires the octopus on her cover, invoking the image of a stuffed animal in “the claw machine at the mall” as metaphor both for what is “impossible” but also, if attained, just possibly “a grotesqueness beyond your tar dark / dreams.” Even so, we cannot escape the impulse to “carry the impossible home.” And that, she tells us throughout this forthright volume, is our greatest hunger:  for curiosity itself, “the way we wanted everything.”

For more information about poet Maria LeBeau, explore www.marcialebeau.com.

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