Heartbreak Autopsy

Amanda McLeod's debut poetry chapbook, Heartbreak Autopsy, begins with a tornado and ends with CPR. In between, McLeod avoids the usual sentimentality associated with love and heartbreak, and instead applies her keen observation and almost clinical language to dissect relationships with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel. In the landscape of love poetry, these poems are unique in their refusal to look away or romanticize the so-called unhappy endings. As a feminist author, McLeod also invites the reader to reimagine the expectations of women in terms of love, marriage, family, and self-sacrifice. "I'm the new Holly Golightly with a heavy step and unkempt hair; my mean reds are stormcloud grey, opaque. If I give heartbreak a name it'll stick around, so I'll make something up." There's a heartbreak story for everyone in this collection, a poem that will be like looking in the mirror and seeing "the truth of what you are / when you're not on fire."