Sundress Reads: Review of In the Cosmic Fugue

Jocelyn Heath’s debut poetry collection, In the Cosmic Fugue (Kelsey Books, 2022), travels beyond Earth’s atmosphere and deep into memory to explore queerness and identity. Using macrocosmic settings like black holes and personal locals like a neighborhood cul-de-sac or a T.G.I. Friday’s, Heath tells a story of self-discovery and, perhaps even more bravely, acknowledges that much is still unknown.  

“Out of Chaos,” the opening poem of the collection, hosts the vast and the minute side by side, exemplified by metaphor in the first line “meteors are sugar” (Heath 15). Play with spacial reasoning performs a large role in the origin story for the speaker’s journey. She even “walk[s] over multitudes” (Heath 15), a moment directly combining the physical and the metaphysical. The first-person singular pronoun “I” grows into the plural “we” in later lines. Heath cleverly pulls readers into a collective unit to witnesses the cosmic and the possible all in one.  

Grounded geographically in the unique landscape of central Australia, “Syzygy” awes at the mystery of the universe. While drawn to look up into a starry night sky, the speaker wonders what is possible:  

What do I think I’ll find here?
When star and crescent align
over Uluru, when I can’t look away,
do I think that here I’ll find
some truth? Far from home, in the night sky
over Uluru? I can’t look away. (Heath 39)

Poetry of witness bears immense responsibility, and Heath’s speaker is humbled. She recognizes that she has much to discover in an unfamiliar place. In the poem, “Evolution,” Heath adds a layer of self-reflection to this search for meaning. She writes, as instructions for herself, “Chart those who walk / the periphery of the universe— / find who I am to seek them out” (Heath 40). Here, Heath commends those who are brave, who live on the edge of their comfort zones. This can relate to other queer folks who live authentically from a young age, and/or despite societal obstacles. As a queer writer who came into my identity as an adult, I know seeking community can be intimidating. Heath recognizes her path is her own, and while there is knowledge to gain about what’s beyond, what’s in the outer edges of what’s possible, there is also significance to looking inward, to understanding her place within the world in order to decide where to go next.

In the Cosmic Fugue includes many poems that examine memory, an expanse often equally as inexplicable as outer space. For example, Heath smartly structures “That Other Girl” as a list poem in order to hold a plethora of rich detail with ease. Some lines focus on the corporeal, including “has just a toss of freckles on her nose” and “rubs on fruit punch lip balm after lunch” ( Heath 23), to provide readers with image. The poem then spirals inward, to position the subject in relation to the speaker: “sits in my orbit if I take a wide loop / doesn’t know I am her satellite” (Heath 23). These last lines add depth and story to a seemingly straightforward poem. Heath inspires readers to wonder about their relationship past, present, and future.

A variety of poetic forms appear throughout the collection, indicating Heath’s attentiveness to readers’ experiences. While “Self-Portrait as a Black Hole” and “Self-Portrait as a Supernova” appear consecutively, they call to each other in both title and structure across the white space between two different sections of the collection. The first poem is an abecedarian, emulating the suction of a black hole by tumbling down the alphabet. The latter, inspired by its titular subject, instead explodes outwards. “Self-Portrait as a Supernova” is a reverse abecedarian, undoing what was previously done and starting with Z.

Heath’s poetry is both search and meditation, both conversation and observation. Throughout the pages of In the Cosmic Fugue, she aims to name what is unnamable, ultimately learning that the most reliable aspect of the universe is its ability to change. In the title poem, Heath writes, “in a wild search for constellations, / I find no fixed stars” (48).  Placed in the center of the collection, these lines embody what it means to be human, as well as what it means to be queer—an identity that is fluid, impossible to define. And yet, there is courage and beauty in such intimate self-reflection. Though so many queer youth aren’t supported with knowledge or guidance of what’s possible, we continue to find ourselves, and each other, every day.

Order In the Cosmic Fugue from Kelsey Books.

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