“The book is filled with long roads, small towns, big dreams, self doubt and intense desires.”
Barefoot Girls by Ann E. Michael
Prolific Press
$8.95
Click HERE to purchase a copy
Reviewed by Phil Dykhouse
“If you pay the price
she’ll let you deep inside
but there’s a secret garden she hides.”
Bruce Springsteen, “Secret Garden”
In the dedication that opens Ann E. Michael’s Barefoot Girls, she professes that her chapbook is “Indebted to the music of Bruce Springsteen',” and as you begin to delve into the 24 poems of the collection, it’s hard not to notice. The book is filled with long roads, small towns, big dreams, self doubt and intense desires. However, even with its poetry being so closely inspired by one music’s greatest storytellers, Barefoot Girls excels in carving its own unique path through it’s tales of being young and growing up in South Jersey.
With its first few poems, Barefoot Girls begins building both its physical and emotional landscape. The streets are empty and boredom is commonplace. Like most teenagers, the subjects in these poems are quite aware of their unfulfilling positions in life. There’s an angst here that comes across as completely natural.
“You sought somewhere sultry and new to you: winding, dense. Dangerous”
from “Coastal Plains”
The streets were dead ends mostly, as the tracks
followed the feeder creek, and there was nothing
to get to on the other side except
trouble…”
from “Dares”
A little further into the book the poems find the girls stepping out into the world beyond their monotonous surroundings. It’s here that they begin to search for who they are, who they want to be. You’ll find them discovering their love of music from a certain rock star and contending with puberty at the roller skating rink.
“Some boy from north Jersey strummed our stories on his guitar…I would never have seen how the music sustains them, those dancers and lovers carried off by the back beat…”
from “Rock Concerts”“...me in my Keds with an extra 50 cents to rent the largest women’s size or a boys’ pair…you and I at fourteen, putting our whole selves in.”
from “Roller Rink”
As you progress further, in what seems so true to life, we find the girls suddenly coming face to face with self perception. Ann does an amazing job subtly introducing it into Barefoot Girls. When I arrived at this part of the book, it came back to me how quickly we as children are thrust in such a confusing time. Competition with each other begins to replace the more innocent relationships we’ve known. We begin to not only question others, but also ourselves.
“...she watches the boys elbow one another trying to pretend they’re not out to impress…”
from “Barefoot Girl”“Something about them spoke of competition and staying tough. Something about them said the ones who stay benched lose.”
from “Bleacher Season”
After that, love and sex begin to play an important role in the book. For the first time in their lives, the girls are experiencing desire from within themselves, as well as boys. It’s in these poems they are confronted with the repercussions of lust, shame, confusion, and especially pregnancy.
“Love was desire mostly, we’d no other name for it, not at 15.”
from “Boys”“She felt his heart beat in her ribs, a tunnel through her girlhood.”
from “Little Joanie”“...your sister’s confession she was carrying the child of that boy she’d been caught screwing in
the high school auditorium back row…”
from “Normal Day”
Towards the end of the book, you’ll find that the poems have evolved into a slightly more reflective tone. The speaker is a little older. She’s experienced things that have changed her. She seems to be looking forward while still having one foot stuck in the past. It's quite similar to the angst that we come upon in the beginning of the book. It's as if she sees that after all her and her friends have been through, they’re still stuck where they were when it started.
“We were young and easily influenced, convinced the future was something constructed around us…”
from “Building for Us”“She’s young but she’s sure she’s left girlhood behind on the swingset…”
from “Against Whatever Holds You Down-”
As I finished Barefoot Girls, I found that Ann’s ability to frame a story with a voice that isn’t at the center of it is one of the book’s highlights. It allows you to feel as though you are part of this group of friends. You feel as though you are with them in their intimate moments. Interestingly enough, I also came of age in South Jersey, so I am quite familiar with its trappings. I’ve experienced many of the same situations and feelings that are the focus of most of these poems. I must say that as a male I was a little intimidated to relive them through a female's perspective. I felt as if I was looking in on something that had been hidden from me my entire life. However, through its layers of honest and evolving poetry, Barefoot Girls reveals itself to be so encompassingly human that the differences in gender become only part of the story instead of its whole. It sings like a song you’re familiar with, even if you’re hearing it for the first time. A song you’ll want to listen to over and over again.
Philip Dykhouse lives in Philadelphia. His chapbook Bury Me Here was published and released by Toho Publishing in early 2020. His work has appeared in Toho Journal, Moonstone Press, everseradio.com, and Spiral Poetry. He was the featured reader for the Dead Bards of Philadelphia at the 2018 Philadelphia Poetry Festival.