SOURCE: Jordan, Barbara. Review of Viper Rum, by Mary Karr. Chicago Review 44, nos. 3-4 (1998): 213-17.

In the following review, Jordan applauds the level of detail and complex imagery in Viper Rum, characterizing Karr as “an exceptionally fine poet.”

The cover of Mary Karr's recent Viper Rum—a dead snake coiled in formaldehyde—gives clear warning to anyone looking to find rhapsodies on butterflies or the vagaries of autumn. This poetry eats that kind of poetry, Karr might say. Her last book of poems, The Devil's Tour, featured a medieval scene where two skeletons hold, above the head of a coy maiden, a mirror that reflects a skull; beneath, a caption reads, “Hither you come, behold what you are, what you will be, or were. … ‘Know thyself.’” In Viper Rum, Karr looks deeply into that mirror from a new perspective; however, that skull—ubiquitous in all her poems—continues...