Bookrate

In Sunspot we have a cave cracked open for us which reveals as much light as it does shadow. Noelle Cannon's poetry builds momentum in small truths which reveal a poet wrestling with deep emotion through an exploration of the wrong turns those emotions can drive us towards. With ocean and a powerful, feminine moon as our backdrop, Cannon's lines get at the heart of a speaker coming to terms with solitude and loss. How do we remember lost love while still staying whole and driving our lives forward? "Now I am the lone keeper of all those golden nights," Cannon's lines proclaim, and it is precisely in these golden moments where the self is saved and not given over to darkness. There are many dark figures in Sunspot, but their stories are ever pressing into Cannon's ongoing attempt to steer the reader towards redemption and trust that being true to oneself is the answer to feeling lost. We are struck by a fearless kind of empathy in these poems which reaches into sadness without pause. This is a speaker who can demand the ocean itself "Replace my salty tears with that of your own blood" and open themselves up to great emotional range. By the end of Sunspot, everything is opened up and even hope grabs hold of you, never letting go.