Julia Koets' Pine,
​BY Despy Boutris

Julia Koets' first collection of poems, Pine, begins with a dedication that reads, "For all the girls who've lain down in fields"—so of course I was instantly hooked. In this book, the title Pine holds a double meaning: both the noun (an evergreen coniferous tree) and the verb (to yearn intensely, often for something unattainable). 

This collection acts as a Bildungsroman, capturing the poet's experience growing up queer in the American South. As the description reads, it maps how "the associations between the body and the natural world form a queer ecology of longing and loss." Pine explores a queer girlhood's with rurality—and the ways in which nature can serve as a safe haven amid a conservative town. Koets writes:

                                                            Two girls
               in a field test the science of buttons. (5)

                                                                                            ...

                              Late at night in my blue car, we drive
               back roads, the only place we speak openly. (19)

                                                                                            ...

                                                            In a city

               so small and southern, I worried our bodies
                              might set off an alarm, a flare in the dark
               open field behind her place. (22)

                                                                                            ...

                                                            two women
               reaching for each other under a row of pines. (52)

Indeed, these poems capture the inevitable secrecy that accompanies queer desire within a tight-knit and mostly-Christian community. Being taught that this desire is at best abnormal—and at worst perverted, depraved, immoral—the speaker and her beloved can only act on it in secret for the sake of their own safety.

As someone with similar thematic concerns, this collection was a highlight of my year—and certainly one of the best collections published in 2021. There are so many lines that I think of again and again and again. Koets writes: 

                              If I could measure our fear in cups,
               I could fill every pool in town. (12)

                                                                                            ...

               I'm always defending desire. (36)

                                                                                            ...

                                             I mistook trust
               for an acre of bones. (38)

And, an expert at metaphor, she writes:

                              Cirrus clouds slide smooth 
               as razors across that throat of sky. (6)

                                                                                            ...

               Tonight the moon lies on its back:
               a thin, white spine. I count each vertebra
               of the woman next to me in bed,
               map her lumbar curvature. (51)

Certainly, I could go on about this collection all day but, since this is a micro-review, here is a pithy summary instead: this is a stunning book written by a hugely talented writer. Please go read it. ⋆

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Julia Koets is the author of PINE, Hold Like Owls, and The Rib Joint: A Memoir in Essays, a LAMBDA Literary Award finalist.

Despy Boutris's writing has been published or is forthcoming in Copper Nickel, Ploughshares, Crazyhorse, AGNI, American Poetry Review, The Gettysburg Review, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. Currently, she lives in California and serves as Editor-in-Chief of The West Review.