Poetry. Dot Devota's THE DIVISION OF LABOR, selected as the Editor's Choice for Rescue Press' Black Box Poetry Prize, tethers the eerie echoes of political and cultural rhetoric to a stunning and documentary peripatetic prophecy; "topic sentences" disclose dark histories and "insurgencies" are formed of storm and shame, vows and violence. "It is not necessary to leave the country," warns Devota, "The reader can recall their own behavior." THE DIVISION OF LABOR is replete with such counsel, among revolts against the patriarchy, love letters to the desert, assassins, witnesses, and an intense scrutiny of false systems.
Author's note: "This is a dated book about a woman trapped in a woman's body who finds the love of her life and watches a lot of news about war. Poems begin after she's repeatedly bitten in her sleep by a very sluggish and drab-looking insect called an Assassin. Welts form. An old woman from out of town gives her a handful of steroids. She continues to write love letters to a man. Later, they both decide to leave the country for Lebanon and Syria."
