“Awareness begins at home, “eye level with the cake,” or so one could infer from Sarah Mangold’s Household Mechanics, a disquieting review of indirect disclosures, internal churnings, and palpable notions, subjected to a tense and skeletal language. She probes, evokes but chooses not to describe or elaborate. She ‘pulls across’ which she distinguishes from ‘associating with.’ The voice is consistent, distant. The sentence is disjointed; the thinking continuous.” ——C.D. Wright, from the foreword

“Here there is a list and there is a life. A coming of age. Doubt. A taking apart. The dog. The girl scout in the tornado. Good intentions. There is something of Plath in these domestic meditations. Something of Stein. ‘you know you’ve seen that. and mashed potatoes like green waves.’”
——Laura Moriarty

"Household Mechanics" at The Academy of American Poets