Built in Sonnets, Pretty Rooms: Nickel Shows Us Around

Hannah Stephenson

Barbara Nickel’s second collection of poetry is organized according to floor plan. Each section of Domain is assigned to a particular room. We enter through the “Master Bedroom,” in which the author confides, “What happened there the mirror memorized.”  Nickel shows us seven rooms (including the kitchen and storage room) that house poems about lost wedding rings, chatty neighbors, and family history.

Nickel’s organizing room poems (all sonnets) lay the foundation for the collection and form a crown; each sonnet’s final line becomes the first line of the next. Domain relies on inheritance in form and subject, and is almost obsessively cyclical.

In “My Brother’s Wedding Ring,” Nickel traces the ring to its original owner, her Russian immigrant grandfather. “Road Trip” sees Nickel recalling songs she sang at summer camp, and then with her daughters: “How is a song round?/ One part begins again/ before the other’s done.”

Nickel’s playful formalism is refreshing; she often substitutes partial rhyme for perfect rhyme (“crucible/audible”) or chooses surprising rhymes (“Nistowiak/back”). The book’s most complex poems personalize the story of Catherine the Great, and borrow lines from Catherine’s journals or letters; though these poems are like lush, weighty tapestries stored in the “Utility Room,” they seem slightly out of place and a little heavy-handed.

Ultimately, Nickel proves a masterful guide through the complex space of family mythology.