Review of  Jane in the Box on the Brontë Blog

Excerpt from a Review of Jane-in-the-Box posted August 21, 2008 on The Brontë Blog by M.

Another collection of poems can be described as poetical retellings of different given episodes of Jane Eyre, with many references extracted from the contemporary American cultural context (from Macy’s to Chanel or Mary Kay crèmes). Here we can find poems of extraordinary richness of detail and unashamed intertextuality like the Mortification Triptych, Jane addresses Edward, Fashion remedy, St John pops the question or the Rochester Triptych (the only ones where Rochester is allowed to speak his mind(4).

The chapbook ends with a poem, The appropriation of Jane, that serves as an excellent coda to the the whole work. Using references to her own Cuban origins, the author describes the fascination which Jane Eyre has on her. The best way to end this brief review of this charming little book of poems is quoting from a paragraph from this last poem:

this poem is about the quintessential
Plain Jane: Jane Eyre, who graciously helps

birth poems stubborn as kidney stones,
mischievous poems that hopscotch

across the page because I’ve ripped
off Charlotte Brontë heroine