Review: McCaela Prentice's "Equinox"

by Tahlia McKinnon.
(photography by Hoss)


With every wounding word poised to mark the skin, hit the throat, wind the lungs—like a bodily trauma, McCaela Prentice delivers blinding impact in just a few short phrases.

There’s a delirium to the poem—a needing to make sense of things. A quiet unravelling. When we consider the titular word, Equinox, in this way, there’s an unpronounced prickle of melancholia, an undeniable ache of nostalgia – but not for what has come to pass in this protagonist’s life.

For what was lost. For what was stolen. For what could and should have been.

Shrouded in dark metaphors and allusions, the reader can only surmise, of course. But closing with a nod to winter—a season synonymous with death and decay, introversion and introspection—it’s as if the speaker is sharing a dark secret; making a confession; crying for help.

A cry that can only echo through your bones, with each and every haunting line.

Exquisite.

read prentice's poem in issue 1