Blake Kilgore reviews
Built by Storms
by Miriam Kramer

Miriam Kramer’s Built By Storms begins with the poet sitting in a gas station bathroom contemplating overdose,
depression, prayer, survivor’s guilt, suicide, and salvation. It is astonishing that a writer would place herself in such a frail and humble light, right from the beginning.

These poems are rich in wisdom. They unravel the Gordian knot of addiction and provide a pragmatic and marvelous means of escape. Yet, from the outset, Kramer frames her hard won, death-defying knowledge from a place of modesty, and permeating the whole work is a watchmen’s care for the possibility of pitfalls, failures, even death.

Nothing is taken for granted here. No self-important or simplistic lessons are offered. If the reader pays attention, though, they might find deliverance. This collection is filled with salvific ruminations on hope. It is one of the saddest collections I’ve ever read, but in the end, it is heartening to the marrow.

Built By Storms is not for everyone. I would not recommend it to young children yet untouched by darkness or cynicism. This collection contains deep dark dives into rape, suicide and self-harm. I would not recommend it to a stuffy, self-righteous prude. It is not for any person yet to know soul-crushing defeat or heartache. This book is filled with pain, gushing from an empathetic heart that has been wounded again and again, frequently by her own unkind hands.

Many of us have lost a dear one to suicide. The numbers have soared cataclysmically in recent years. We can still only barely wrangle with the issue, and many who struggle with mental illness believe, with real justification, they are alone.

If you know someone hanging by a thread, someone who feels abandoned, someone who has sold so much of their precious life to addiction and self-destructive behavior, if you know and love someone who has contemplated or even attempted to escape their life of bewilderment and woe, give them this collection.

I had the privilege of hearing some of these words from the mouth of the poet before I read them on the page. The following dropped like manna into my heart on the night of my first hearing- 

                  “Trust that when you are out of pieces to lose,

             life will still take from you. Stay to take the pieces back,
stay to band-aid the holes, stay because you
don’t think anyone wants you to,
stay for spite. Just please, stay.”

At no point in this collection does Kramer suggest anything about recovery is easy. To the contrary, frequently the reader feels the poet is wavering in her own resilience, her own commitment to “stay.” For her, it continues to be a daily battle.

The words above are from a poem called “Dirty Laundry,” written for a boy the poet knew who took his own life in the tenth grade. While confessional poetry often centers around the poet, and on some occasions, the reader feels left out and ignored, Kramer has interwoven poems to and for others with poems about and from her own life.

From her place of nearly complete and constant brokenness, the poet reaches out with bandages, ointment, candles, crumbs. She gives out of her poverty, the most generous kind of love.

Some of the primary grief one finds in these pages is that carried by Kramer for those who did not stay. Throughout, there is a chorus of those off stage, and whether they proved unfaithful boyfriends, faithful friends, sponsors who fell from the wagon, or the litany of addicts who succumbed to their sickness, Kramer treats them all with gentleness.

In “The Bargaining Stage”, she observes of herself that-

“you grew up gentle to everyone but yourself”

-and in these poems, this is partly true. Kramer ridicules and judges herself on many of these pages. In the guise of Neal Cassidy, she offers the following rebuke-

             “As if you’ve had it so tough. That thing you call eternal sadness,
              your unique flaws. That’s just the human condition, get used to it.
             Aren’t you tired of your half-existence in a broken fantasy?”

Yet, she has and is learning to treat herself kindly. In “A Letter to My Twelve-Year-Old Self” she starts out saying-

             “I could write us all better than we were
             but I won’t…”-

and she never does. This reckoning with agony and recovery is never halfhearted.

But she shows compassion in the end, adding-

                                                “…I know
             this is not what you want to hear
             but the love you’ve been seeking
             is your own.”

In “Finding Salvation in a Church Gymnasium” Kramer co-mingles grief and perseverance, saying-

             “I will return here, week after week, days
            becoming years. I will come here after sponsees’
             funerals. I will come here to find hope each time
             I am certain there is none…”

And she will finally forgive herself in a poem tenderly titled “Worth Reconstruction,” saying-

            “you don’t have to be destroyed to be rebuilt.”

This collection is a crucible, hard in places because of how intensely the wounding is captured by the words. It is one thing to suffer and die at your own hands and then to be born again. A miracle! Ms. Kramer has not only found the courage to climb back from the abyss, but she has also worked diligently to sharpen her craft, fashioning a direct, eloquent road map to courage for others who believe they are trapped.

To them, and indeed, to all of us who suffer and resolve to continue, she writes, in “Reason 47 to Live Through the Apocalypse”-

                                                “thank you,
            you are here. Thank you, you made it.
            You didn’t have to make it.”

Blake Kilgore the author of Leviathan (Hapless Hip Books, 2021), a collection of poems wrestling with faith and doubt. He teaches history and coaches basketball during the workday and tries his best to love his wife and four sons when he goes home. His writing has appeared in many fine journals, recently including Common Ground Review, Fare Forward, and Vita Poetica. More of his writing is forthcoming in Pensive: A Literary Journal of Spirituality and the Arts. You can find out more at blakekilgore.com

Miriam Kramer is a queer, Jewish poet residing in New Jersey with her partner and two cats. She majored in Creative Writing at Pacific University and currently works at an educational nonprofit. Her poetry has appeared in Variant Literature, So to Speak Journal, FreezeRay Poetry, and others. She is the author of three chapbooks prior to her debut full length collection with Write Bloody Publishing. Miriam has performed her poetry in front of a wide range of audiences in a variety of venues across the United States. Find her on social media: @miriadwords