Sea Room

Book excerpt: Sea Room is a navigational term meaning adequate space at sea in which to maneuver a ship. The term seems an incongruity – that something so open and deep should require such precise and careful charting. In these most specific and powerful poems, the poet maps areas of obsessive love, phobic illness, godlessness, the prism of sexuality and romantic instinct in which all things are reflected, distorted. There's a playful terror in Maria Flook's poems. Her animated word is full of signs and signals; she always finds the telling analogue or makes the figure which reveals, illuminated everyday perceptions. "Dreams have cruel motives. Sleep worries/ both the decent and the wicked/ who keep odd hours/ so I walked out." The poems search for reprieve, or a calm, in wronged lives. Any accusations are fully explored, recalled in forgiveness or apology for relationships long over.