---

This collection is both a deep dive into being an outsider, in one’s own family , and in the world. From the beginning this slim collection calls out with a fierce yet gentle force to thrust the role of the outsider into the light, not to magnify Knoll’s own experiences, but to hold it up as a mirror to the reader so that each reader can discover their own sense of “being different, an outsider,” while at the same time revealing both the intimacies of hurt and help which derive from such a status. The book itself is different from most other chapbooks in that it was published all in one piece, no poems saw print independently. The effect of Knoll’s genius in this is that the reading of the collection is more connected than in most chapbooks. In fact, for me it reads like a piece of theatre—incredibly vivid, full of imagery, emotion there is also a story that that calls out for it to be performed on a stage, as well as in the mind of the readers. Yes, all poetry has a life in oral tradition as well as written but in this case the entire group of poems, I feel, would make a wonderful and piercing to the heart stage production. I first became aware of what I thought then was the full force of Tricia’s particular genius of being able to construct masterpieces with carefully chosen words and phrases in her chapbook, Checkered Mates. However, in this newest chapbook, The Unknown Daughter, Knoll not only reveals her own depth of life experience but also reveals an even greater depth to her ability as a poet. For me it is the poems by the watchers that struck most deeply—especially the one where her brother speaks and says he was her first watcher—he is one who noticed her when others did not. Reading the dedication of the book we discover that she names her real-life brother and knowing this deepens our experience with that brother who is a Watcher. Usually when I review a book of poetry, I select a few poems and quote a line or two but in this case, such separation from the whole seems almost sacrilegious. As I went back to the book time after time, I realized the only proper way to quote from this book would be to line up a cento of sorts, quoting from every single poem—such is the wisdom and exquisite beauty of each poem and the sacrosanct nature of each poem’s place in the whole of the book. I will make an exception for the line “How could I think I would be other” in the last poem in the book because it heightens the mirror experience for the reader and when reading it we read with her and realize we need to hold up the mirror to our own lives. On reading this, I exhaled, realizing that for the last few poems I had been holding my breath at their astounding beauty. For in the course of writing this deep personal dive. Someone watching does know us, understands, and even wants to help us grow into the artistic persona we unknown others need to be. Being an “other” , being unknown to those around us, is not a role to be disdained. Knoll’s poems not only uncover hidden pathways and facets within herself , her past, present , and even future, but also with structures the words, phrases, elements so that all readers, can understand their own “outsideness”, see how being different is a gift even when it seems a burden and she offers with this, even with its hardest poems, a soft cushion of understanding. This review was originally published in Highland Park Poetry July 2024.