Kintsukuroi by Whitnee Thorp

Whitnee Thorp taps the “floating colors” of memory to offer up poems that are historically-situated, transnational, matrilineal, and political. Her chapbook Kintsukuori contains no “fragile figurines,” but poems that get the “heartbeat / thumping” before settling like “confetti / on / lashes”. Thorp’s poetic voice is at turns elegiac and ironic, curious and knowing. Kintsukuori is a gift.

–Cheryl R. Hopson, PhD -Author of Black Notes

Whitnee Thorp does not flinch in the face of the brokenness that’s all around us. Aging, PTSD, divorce, forced abortions, teen pregnancy, car accidents caused by drinking and driving — all of these appear in the poems. But the poems are pure gold, full of “tall-stemmed sunflowers / always watching, with hundreds / of black-speckled eyes” and “bodies on fire / extinguished only by each other”. After reading Kintsukuori, you’ll know that the world is more broken than you’ve ever realized — and more beautiful than you’ve ever imagined.

–Tom C. Hunley, author of PLUNK and THE STATE THAT SPRINGFIELD IS IN

Whitnee Thorp‘s voice is down home electric. At all times intimate & universal, she spends time in small town Kentucky, and on bus stops in Zhangjiajie. These poems travel. Kintsukuori is a collection of repair & rejoice. Her images catapult off the page – they break their teeth on beer bottles, samba, heal, salvage, and pray – they root us deep into what it means to be a woman. Beautiful, jarring & alive, hers is a voice worth revisiting, writing down & remembering.