Review of The Ones I Could Tell Anything by Nina Rubinstein Alonzo

Poetry usually works best when the poet objectifies the personal on a mindful scale between self-evaluation and mythic individuality. Nina Rubinstein Alonzo does exactly that in her latest collection The Ones I Could Tell Anything, subtitled Mists of Self.

 Styled mostly in crisp, neatly packed pods sans punctuation, Alonzo’s confessional pieces in Part 1 intimate external human connections beyond pedestrian attention and in Part 2, using inspired depictions, her very different, surreal pieces often wax mythical with internal and latent symbolism. These same images rub up against each other wonderfully, fusing dry narratives with her seemingly subconscious visions. For more of my review of The Ones I Could Tell Anything go here: https://dougholder.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-ones-i-could-tell-anything-mists-of.html