Glass Cabin

Glass Cabin 

by Tina Mozelle Braziel and James Braziel 

Pulley Press, 2024 

Paperback: $18.00 

Genre: Poetry 

Reviewed by Foster Dickson 

Often, when we pick up a book, it’s easy to assume that the title could just be figurative, some image or turn of phrase meant to shape our thinking as we approach the work. But in the case of Glass Cabin, the title is about as literal as literal can be. This work is a hybrid collection of poetry and prose about a husband and wife who . . . build a glass cabin. Of course, there’s more to it than that – in substance and in style – and it is pleasing to share that the writing inside is as complex and nuanced as the title is clear and blunt.   

Any home construction project, even a small one, will test a marriage or serious relationship, so knowing that Tina Mozelle Braziel and James (Jim) Braziel worked on this one for thirteen years should result in respect and admiration. And even more so because their experience yielded not only the house, but also this wonderful collection that speaks to us in their alternating voices. To open, Jim explains the circumstances that brought him to a rural site outside of Birmingham in the spring of 2011. Tina soon joins in this labor of “building their home out of secondhand tin, tornado-snapped power poles, and church glass on a waterless ridge.” We meet James’s son, as well, and are carried somewhat ephemerally through the process of the two poets making themselves a home in a place with its own difficulties, natural and manmade.  

The majority of Glass Cabin’s pages contain poems, some by Jim, others by Tina, and a few by both. Most are relatively short lyrics in open forms, while interspersed prose passages nudge the narrative forward, too. Some poems reach back into the poets’ lives before they met, and others describe on-site experiences. (A handful could be called love poems, of course.) As we move through, we get to know these two, where they come from and who they are, while getting glimpses of the cutting and hammering, hauling in water, hoping the truck doesn’t give out, avoiding insects, and combating rain. In “How to Make a Clearing,” early in the collection, Jim gives an account of those challenges and how to meet them. Later, in “Hatches” and “Stair Calculator,” Tina narrates the process of making sure that hinges and stairs function properly. Among these construction details, we find literary allusions to Thoreau and Larry Brown and to modern Alabama: poet Ashley M. Jones and the 280 Boogie (in Waverly). For handy reference, there is a glossary in the back for folks who may require a little explanation. 

Setting aside the substance for a moment to say a word about the style, the writing in Glass Cabin is not only interesting, it’s well-crafted. The authors commingle clarity and subtlety quite well here. For example, in the poem “Weathermyth,” Jim’s opening line reads, “My world now is a glass cabin I’m building with my wife,” while down the page, we find: “The gods either get you / or they don’t. You’re either here or you’re no longer.” Something to ground us, something to think about. In Tina’s poem “Right Now,” we find descriptions of their work, from “saw screams, spraying sawdust / down my shirt” and “sweat bees stinging / my elbows” to “I’m going under the house to pee / in the bucket.”  These images, which are clear enough in and of themselves, are listed using irregular line breaks, which seem to mimic the pauses of a winded speaker whose determination keeps her going. All in all, we find in the collection an array of disparate observations, ideas, and emotions brought to us in varied literary forms yet still unified within a group of common themes: home, place, family, love, community, and the work it takes to have and keep those things. 

Foster Dickson is a writer, editor, and teacher in Montgomery, Alabama.