Jill Bialosky’s newest collection, “Mock Heart,” offers a compelling exploration of desire, loss, and the complexities of the self through 23 original poems followed by selected works from her previous five books, arranged in reverse chronological order. This circular structure reflects the recurring themes of longing and domesticity that permeate the volume.
The title “Mock Heart” carries layered meanings, suggesting both scorn and inauthenticity, transforming the heart from a symbol of enduring love into a more fractured and unstable entity. Bialosky’s poetry resists definitive answers, instead raising persistent questions about emotional turbulence and unresolved grief.
The opening poem, “Cleanup,” shifts rhythmically between the mundane and the ecstatic, describing leaves blanketing a funeral garden and evoking a restless energy with the refrain, “Why am I married to longing & lament?” This rhetorical query recurs throughout the collection, emphasizing a tension between acceptance and yearning without descending into self-pity. The poems confront profound family traumas—including a father’s sudden death, the loss of two newborn siblings, and a sister’s suicide—with a tone of controlled sorrow and resilience.
Motherhood and the absence or presence of children emerge as central motifs, reflecting fears and hopes tied to identity and continuity. Bialosky grapples with a duality of existence: one life marked by acceptance, the other by regret. This “marriage” within the self underpins much of her poetic voice, which often portrays a split consciousness struggling to reconcile conflicting impulses. The title poem exemplifies this with imagery of a “dark doppelgänger,” suggesting a hidden, forbidden aspect of the self.
Throughout “Mock Heart,” Bialosky engages with the constraints that shape human behavior, intimacy, and mourning. She acknowledges the limits inherent in grief, writing that “to love in pain/won’t bring back early loss.” Her work frequently nods to the influence of Holocaust poet Paul Celan, whose reflections on the salvific power of language are echoed in Bialosky’s earlier collection “Asylum.” There, language functions as both prison and lifeline for a “captive spirit,” capturing the poet’s struggle with fear, rage, and emptiness.
In addition to personal and historical grief, Bialosky’s poetry touches on moments of quiet joy and connection, including scenes from her adopted son’s childhood. Her depiction of baseball practice conveys an understanding of the importance of rules and structure, paralleling broader themes of constraint and freedom.
As the volume moves backward through her oeuvre, it reveals a consistent voice of mourning and resilience, especially in poems surrounding her sister’s death. The collection as a whole affirms the act of writing as a form of survival, echoing French critic Hélène Cixous’s assertion that “woman must write her self.” After three decades of work, Bialosky’s poetry continues to inhabit the space between loss and endurance, using language to navigate the complexities of the heart—whether “mock” or authentic.