‘What Happens to a Voice Too Long Unused?’ by Amy Strauss Friedman

— Hannah Cohen

But I’ve learned that hunting what’s moored
is easy

I love poems about stars in the sky, and the creatures that make up those tiny dots. And poems about constellations are just as numerous as the constellations themselves. However, ‘What Happens to a Voice Too Long Unused’ has a corporeal and unearthly element to it, which is why Friedman’s poem stands out among the rest. There’s a tug and pull here, best represented in the lines “[t]here’s transference on both sides. Only one reverts” and “painting lipstick over cellophane”. We don’t need to know the backstory, just the markers left on the speaker and up in the sky. I keep reading this poem over and over, dawdling in the white space between stanzas and admiring its truth.


Rust + Moth