CICADA SONGS

Lunte delves into relationships, American culture, and personal growth in this book of poems.

The author opens this collection by comparing the life of a cicada to their own coming of age, emphasizing the need to shed the past and embrace the new while retaining memories of what came before. Lunte revisits a protest they attended at age 19, now realizing that their young self was unaware “That this system requires // The oppression and fear of the Other / To create and maintain wealth for the privileged few.” Upon Roe v. Wade being overturned, they mourn the ways women’s bodies are controlled and used to maintain the status quo, stating, “Overburdened people / Cannot dream of revolution.” Lunte also examines relationships; “In Memoriam,” a short poem honoring a departed loved one, finds the speaker wondering where love goes after death. In “Discovery of a Soul Mate,” the speaker is “Longing to hear the song of you loving me.” In “The Will to Love,” the author rejects capitalism, deciding that “success / Lies in the capacity to love and be happy.” In an intimate scene, an unidentified speaker washes their flawed feet. In a manifesto-like piece, the speaker states that she is childless by choice and would rather leave her legacy in writing. Some of the author’s more heavy-handed declarations (“I do not long to create life / To cast it into this cold world”) seem to demand solidarity from the reader. The writing is occasionally overwrought, like these lines about overturning Roe v. Wade: “A decision was assented / By a puppet majority; / A revocation of a Woman’s sovereignty.” Lunte’s work is at its best when showing vulnerability, as when she notes, “The pillow still smells like the nook / of your warm body.” They are equally effective at teasing lessons from the natural world in lines like, “Extending myself grace in the same way / That the new leaf, / Soft green and delicate, / Unfurls itself on the naked branch.”

A piercing poetry collection blending personal reflections and societal critiques.