The Cumulus Effect by J. Mae Barizo

The sequential poems in The Cumulus Effect map how the intersections between geography, memory, and desire weave personal, unavoidable history. The book’s structure alludes to “method of loci” or “memory palace,” the ancient mnemonic technique of spatial memorization.  Minimalist, but insistently mercurial, the poems move through American and European cities: seduction in an Neoclassical palace in Saint Petersburg; a “hindsight of blood” in New York City; late-summer longing in Berlin’s Senefelder Platz. Like the erratic sky of the book’s title poem, these verses are laced with an uncanny delicacy; The Cumulus Effect sets on the page a prismatic and complex topography of the body forever en route.