Capturing little beasts 

Imagine yourself walking down a cobble-stoned street on a dark, wet day. The street tapers off, turning into an alley, and at a distance you catch an image of a little girl. She’s properly attired for a school girl; white knee highs, pleated plaid skirt…but as you get closer, you notice, horns, blood, and you realize that this is no little girl…that’s what reading Melissa Hansen’s little beasts feels like. 

Hansen is a writer after my own heart; her work is everything that poetry should be. It’s magically crafted, it bites, it scratches; it does that thing that poems are suppose to do. It sneaks in and infects you; these poems will linger in your mind, and demand to be remembered when you least expect it. They are quite unforgettable poems. 

little beasts is filled with poems that are lyrical and hesitant, reminiscent of some of my favorite Creeley poems:

“I’m gonna slap you 

around

now lie back down

hold your legs

up high

let me rub 

right between

those 

soft

girl

thighs”

(Forced Poem)

Hansen enters dangerous literary terrain with her poems; alcoholism, death, sex, and succeeds where many fail. Her poems are poems that perfectly meld content and form.

This is a delicious collection of twenty poems, mostly small poems, each one a celebration of the beauty that can be achieved with an economy of words. These poems should be read, and reread. little beasts is proof of why Melissa Hansen is one of my favorite contemporary writers. 

- MK Chavez

Author of Virgin Eyes and Visitation