Juliet Cook reviews {f}ragile Nests by Pella {f}elton
A short review of a complex collection, {f}ragile Nests by Pella {f}elton
(Roadside Press, 2026)
You never saw me as I am. Not fully.
No one
ever did. (But you came closer than most). The closest we got was
when you applied my eyelashes in the dressing room one opening
night before helping me into my girdle.
So 20 years later, you’re a stepmom and I’m still down the rabbit
hole, as hungry as the bird you told me I was, opening one more can
of worms:
I was never a boy.
And the only girl I was in love with
was the 38-year-old man who wrote this poem
not knowing that she was also lying to herself.
It was a pretty sweet lie.
We made it up together.
Because neither of us is a bird.
in the poem “If You’re A Bird”, in the book {f}ragile Nests by Pella {f}elton
I have seen and heard Pella Felton read and perform her poetry live quite a few times and she is a wonderfully powerful reader. I’ve also read several of her writings before, which were also powerful in their own unique way. But this is the first time I’ve encountered a full-length poetry collection by Pella, which I was excited to delve into.
The beginning of the book involves an interesting and multifaceted Prologue, which expresses, among many other contradictory complexities, “I co[m]e fro[m] a box that should not exist”. But Pella’s box definitely does exist (within many different facets and interconnections), definitely deserves to exist, and definitely deserves to be viewed, heard, read, and explored.
On a side note related to different kinds of boxes, after I shared this review with Pella, Pella informed me that for her, the box “was quite literal – the M on my birth certificate”, which makes sense (for someone who is transitioning, but still has a certain box check marked on a birth certificate), but which I hadn’t initially realized, perhaps in part because my mind doesn’t tend to quickly narrow things down (especially things like human beings) to numbers or letters or a small check marked sort of box.
Thus in my mind, I initially visualized a larger box that was trying to be broken through or recreated or change its own shape, size, or other elements. To not be held shut in any one pre-designated structure.
I’ve also been thinking about glass cages and glass coffins lately (in part, because I’m repeatedly inserting glass coffins into a small series of interconnected poems I’m in the process of working on) and so I visualized Pella’s box (or one of them) as a glass coffin she was breaking through. Breaking through a glass mirror or a glass coffin involves cracks and shards and wounds but once the glass is broken through something new may emerge. Something that has been somewhat hiding inside oneself for quite some time (like a poem) and shall now be revealed in varying phases and styles and degrees. From feeling stuck, “But the ga[m]es were [m]ade up and the point didn’t [m]atter”, to breaking through.
“SO I COULD NOT LET THEM DRAW THE LINE”.
On a side note related to lines, I took several small breaks from my reading and writing of this review, to re-listen to “Hardly Wait”, an old song by PJ Harvey, a long time favorite singer of mine. This song also includes a glass coffin and ends with the line “In my glass coffin, I am waiting.”…, repeated several times.
Aspects of this song seemed to connect with aspects of Pella’s book (at least inside my mind) and you can give it a listen here:
Hardly Wait (4-Track Demo Version) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaaRvvQC47s
Returning to Pella’s collection, the first poem in {f}ragile Nests incorporates birds (as did the first poem I quoted lines from at the beginning of this review and as do several other poems in this book).
I like birds. Birds are nice.
But this isn’t a poem about birds.
And I lied to all of you
when I called this a poem about birds.
the beginning of “A Poem About Birds”
and more lines from “A Poem About Birds”, later in the poem:
A poet can write a poem about a bird,
but a poet can’t write a bird.
Because a poet
isn’t God
Unless he has an MFA,
(and then he’s only God in his own damn mind.)
But his family still makes fun of him
for his life decisions.
Oddly amusing and thought provoking and offering some elements of truth at the same time, this poem isn’t just about birds, but birds are nice, and there are so many different varieties of them, and they fly and sing their different songs in various elements of this collection.
Other poems within this collection include more elements of amusement, and sarcasm, and anger, sadness, loneliness… —trying one’s best to become one’s true and genuine self (even if people who were a significant part of your past cannot entirely understand or accept who you truly are and despite other people’s disapproval and discomfort). What if the real true you is invisible to others? What if the real true you is ignored by others? What if the real true you is disliked or disregarded by others?
How does one deal with feeling invisible to parts of one’s own past (including some friends, family members, significant others, your past spouse), because they don’t understand the real you whom you are transitioning into, and they would rather disassociate from a reality they don’t personally relate to? This collection addresses and explores some of these kinds of thoughts, feelings, questions and pain.
Despite other’s doubts and discomfort, it is still meaningful and important to transform into the real you, even as certain relationships end or change or become parts of past archives.
harshing the melody I longed to sing at
your mother’s funeral two years ago,
back when you told me I could come
if I dressed like a man.
I would have done it too.
But then she lived another year,
I was not invited to the funeral.
I spend too long thinking
about this shit.
Dropped by passing birds at
the end of the journey.
in the poem “Chekhov’s Seagull”
Even as passing birds or past significant others drop you and parts of yourself seem to be disappearing in the eyes of others, you are also being reborn and evolving, even if parts of your rebirth are an ongoing battle brimming with challenges and sometimes loneliness. Some of these poems explore this loneliness and solitude and cravings for pieces of the past, while ultimately desiring to be seen and accepted for who you are now, the present version of yourself.
I admit that growing old is easier
with the company of voices I can
pause, unwilling sirens of an imaginary
presence, than to listen to the cold
silences of those I’ve loved and hurt.
The archive can’t hurt me with its
politics. The archive can’t turn its
back on me.
in the poem “Auslander’s Lament”
{f}ragile Nests by Pella {f}elton is very much alive and worth reading, exploring and loving. It is its own unique and admirable poetic entity (with its own evolving wings), available from Roadside Press here – https://www.magicaljeep.com.
Juliet Cook doesn’t fit inside an Easy-Bake Oven and rarely cooks. Her poetry has appeared in a peculiar multitude of literary publications. She is the author of numerous poetry chapbooks, most recently including “red flames burning out” (Grey Book Press, 2023), “Contorted Doom Conveyor” (Gutter Snob Books, 2023), “Your Mouth is Moving Backwards” (Ethel Zine & Micro Press, 2023), “REVOLTING” (Cul-de-sac of Blood, 2024), and “Blue Stingers Instead of Wings” (Pure Sleeze Press, 2025). Her most recent full-length poetry book, “Malformed Confetti” was published by Crisis Chronicles Press. You can find out more at https://julietcook.weebly.com/.
