Guillermo Santos Reviews Aphrodite’s Drink Order

Jul 31

Written by Guillermo Santos

Review

Aphrodite's Drink Order is on the rocks. The ones at the base of a cliff, covered in dead sailors and singing sirens sunning themselves under the glow of a neon sign. Ones that when they are not braiding each other's hair, hoisting the corpses up like marionette's to make each other laugh, or doing lines off one another's tails, are reading this collection. For these are the images Noel Martin's debut poetry collection evokes. Through her masterful language and unrecreateable tableaux each word transports you to the dingiest late night dives, the painful contemplative hungover mornings that follow, and all the sexy fun that connects the two the whole night through. All while igniting a beatific appreciation for every single gin soaked second that reminds us not only of the beauty in quotidian, but the majesty in the times we try to escape it.

Martin's reverence for femininity in all its forms is so devotional that it becomes a religious experience to read. Bloody tampons, condom wrappers, drugstore lipstick, cigarettes, vapes, trivial junk, and any good small enough to sneak out in a purse are all hallowed in her poems; and preach a necessity to mythologize them and the self that will leave every reader as inspired as it does in awe. In Martin's world hedonism is splendorous, quiet, lavishing, something to bask in, and sacrosanct, and thank the gods of beauty, sex, rage, love and art we're living in it.