Required Assembly: Prose Poems

[I]magine my glee when I came upon Shivani Mehta's memorable new collection [of prose poems], The Required Assembly. In these minimalist beauties Mehta proves that the tiny is enormous as she effortlessly (and sometimes playfully) moves between myth and reality, both of which often seem interchangeable. The book is also an imaginative autobiography, with seemingly real-life experiences made folkloric through sudden linguistic and thematic surprises, while also being people by stand-ins for the author such as the "woman with a birdcage on her head," the "Invisible Girl," and the "Woman Who Is Sawed in Half." Charles Simic, another minimalist, once wrote, "The poem I want to write is impossible. A stone that floats." In The Required Assembly, Shivani Mehta has created an entire book of such poems. (Peter Johnson)