Revenge

In Revenge, Lauri Robertson's biting 6th volume of poetry, a woman becomes so angry that she throws a piece of plastic into the regular garbage instead of the recycling. But, it's not all a revenge-lite catalogue; note the Girl Scouts accidentally or otherwise leaving her out of the troop because her mother was in a psychiatric hospital. The vignettes resonate deeply, and remind the reader of their own stories. Robertson, who happens to be a psychoanalyst, makes unvarnished, dumbfounded inquiry into our nature(s). This is not appalling, worldly revenge, though perhaps some kind of understanding begins here.