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Slag as in waste product. Slag as in misogynistic invective. Either use unites the speakers in Aimee Noel’s first poetry collection. From bodies of workers broken to bodies of those attacked to bodies of water abused, Noel holds the beauty and danger of the moment in balance. Incorporating research, interviews, memories and myth, Slag weaves a world of those who persist, even thrive, though their environment, both internal and external, may not have their best interests at heart.
Aimee Noel's debut collection of poetry, Slag, is now available to order from Sheila-Na-Gig Press.
Her essays and poems, infused with the lake water and steel of a childhood near Buffalo, have been featured on NPR affiliates and published in Witness, Michigan Quarterly Review, Provincetown Arts, Forklift, Ohio, Slippery Elm, Nuclear Impact Poetry Anthology, and elsewhere.
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR SLAG
“Here we are, at the edge of Slag, every one of us as nervy and bright as the speakers in this extraordinary debut collection from Aimee Noel. Through keen observation and skill, this world "becomes blue, cracks itself/like glass, tumbles over sand until/edges disappear. It emerges a gem.” Not since Phil Levine have we had poems sing with such pride and grit of the stuff of work, the formation and dissipation of towns and identity around industry. This poet's voice is a vital archive of a time when nearly all work was embodied; it and she are inexorable, and that's exactly what we need them to be. “
– July Westhale, author of Via Negativa and moon moon
“Slag brings working-class Buffalo and the rust belt as close as the next bar stool. Aimee Noel's poems chronicle the generational consequences of steel dust, wartime uranium processing, escalating violence, but also the bonds between a daughter and her father, a driver in a blizzard and the driver ahead. Noel's steel is tempered by tenderness. Slag is a harshly honest, insightful, moving portrait of a struggling America.”
– Kathleen Flenniken, former Washington Poet Laureate and author of Post Romantic and Plume
“These gritty poems avoid the trap of blue collar cliches by offering readers empathetic, scrupulously observed, but unsentimental portraits of family, friends and neighbors: "bodies bent by heavy metals/and the weight of limited options.” Framed in crafted lines and stanzas, Noel's voice can be tough or tender; when required, she invests difficult subject matter with a formal inventiveness that is both refreshing and satisfying. Slag never disappoints.”
– Mark Pawlak, author of Away Away
Below you'll find links to some of Aimee's published work, as well as samples of her poetry.
HEIRARCHY OF FISH
When there is nothing
left to eat, carp walk
across fetid mats of algae
and lay themselves
like silver loaves,
along the shore.
Fattened on slag,
mud-vein heavy
with metal, they
return to our plates,
replete with floating bones,
what we have given.
GOING HOME AGAIN
There is a white-collar cost to remaining
true blue. Outsider status comes with a degree.
You can go home again but there is an overly polite
emphasis on plans to accommodate and I know
I haven’t forgotten how to drive in the snow, but
I am offered the 4×4 like a visitor and my vinaigrette’s
fancy which is to say snobby, and a bit salty, which is to say
salty—not surprising because I am Lot’s wife, nameless
and a warning for those who think they are better: if you are
willing to leave the others behind to burn,
you don’t deserve a return engagement.
RETURNING TO WORK
AFTER THE WOMEN’S MARCH
He tells me about his weekend,
and how the arena was packed.
Some had signs -- the usual, he says:
We the People, John Cena is still a tool!
MY WIFE THINKS I'M AT BIBLE STUDY.
That one was funny, he says.
There was music of course, not live,
but, you know, loud music and
everyone pumping their fists in the air
like it's a rock concert. The music
really telling the crowd what to feel.
You know who's coming to the ring
as soon as the first note hits.
It's easy to tell who the villain is.
JBL choked Leviathan with an electric cable
and wrapped his body with barbed wire
and hit him with a chair to the chest
and his hands were tied behind his back
and he couldn't protect himself at all
and he slipped in his blood when he tried to stand
and you couldn't help but feel a part of something huge,
you know, when you're surrounded by thousands,
all chanting, Yes! Yes! Yes!and you want the finisher,
the one that really puts the wrestler out of his misery,
but you don't want it to end. Finishing moves are way
more tame now anyway. Chair shots to the head
are illegal now. So are curb stomps. You can't just crush
a man's skull with your boot anymore. Aw, no, no.
Don't worry -- it's not real blood. It's all in good fun.
They plan out the winner ahead of time.