An Eros Encyclopedia by Rachel James sometimes feels like an autobiography of an eros. Sometimes it feels like a set of dream reports or a chorus of voices or a set of transmissions from a lost diary somewhere on earth. There are snippets from a play, too—voices in a psychedelic choir that pop up with the minimalism and verve of Aram Saroyan. It is, without a doubt, one of the most moving debut collections of poetry I’ve read in years. Stunning, electric, shimmering, unclassifiable. “Collection” might not be the right word. The individual pieces—fragments, I would say, if they weren’t in their individual ways so radiant and contained, so each complete—all without titles, cascading across 150 pages moving from prose to song to sardonic but sweet aphoristic quotes that turn the whole idea on its head, like:
Now I am a rock far away from the shadow of an idea
—exiled piece of mountain
