Little Palace

Ushering his reader softly through intimate scenes of life in Paris, Adam J. Gellings, whose speaker's "heart, like an old snail, is not the same heart it once was," makes me hungry to return to this city of smoky rooms, street cats, Cézanne paintings, and fresh baguettes. But, ah, I have already just been there "pounding hard" fresh dough "to reshape its center against the snowy counter until its figure is full." That's how I feel reading Little Palace-like I have just been to Paris again.I have resized this frame a hundred different ways. / Let me know show you," writes Adam J. Gellings in Little Palace, and he does exactly that. In every poem, the frame is resized and the reader is invited in. This book is both intimate and pressing, heavy and lovely, just right and brimming to the edge. These poems are like "a beautiful, beautiful dress/ assembled from everything/ you've ever wanted/ to touch" and you do touch them and you can touch them and they are exactly what you are looking for; impressions to wear out into the world. In this book, Gellings invites the reader in to many worlds, many little palaces, and suddenly, "there you are," free to wander the streets and gardens.