Reviews

The Beautiful: Collected Poems by Michelle Tea

bdfarber13's review against another edition

3.0

Michelle Tea writes conversational poetry that feels very familiar, like you're talking with a friend about life, love, and ideas, and then those moments when it turns from mundane caring words to crystallized meanings, where words are clever and clear and convey in beautiful ways what you've tried to say so many times before. Some of them are much better than others, but I liked moving through this book piecemeal, considering a couple poems at a time.

Some favorites:
If You Leave a Woman Flowers, You'll Probably Scare Her Away
For Zanne For Zanne For Zanne
Go Kiss Go
We are Girls
Lovesad
Percentages<3
What I Mean by American

pajge's review against another edition

5.0

oh my god, these poems were so incredibly relevant and relatable and i just loved them all so so much. the good, the bad, the ugly—its truly all captured here with tea’s just stunning writing style. some of these poems i spoke aloud as i read them knowing a lot of this was spoken word, and wow. some left me laughing, others had me choked up. i just cannot express how much these poems moved me. amazing

emquartz15's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny reflective medium-paced

5.0

There are ENDLESS gems in this book. Tea is so clever and imaginative, seamlessly weaving her story—and the greater story of what it means to be queer, anti-capitalist, etc. in America—with striking yet sensible metaphors. Only a couple downsides. First, sometimes the writing ages itself with offensive language. Aside from that, the lack of punctuation and overuse of line breaks brought confusion I deemed unnecessary. It frustrated me because I just wanted to focus on the amazing stories being told. Also, I would have liked more breaks overall in the form to make the poetry more digestible, but of course that’s a personal preference. It took me awhile to finish the book, and I had to take a long break from it because of the density/subject matter, but I love knowing it’s on my shelf. (I NEED to hear some of these poems read aloud.) A couple of my favorites are “Our Lady of Ridiculous Wishes” and “What I Mean by American.” 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Incest, Police brutality, Sexual assault, Child abuse, and Violence

greeniezona's review against another edition

4.0

My love affair with Michelle Tea continues. To be sure, not all of these poems are brilliant. Some are not much more impressive than my own college years' scribblings. But every now and again there are flashes that strike me to the core. And like reading her memoirs, it's a glimpse at a life I could never lead, might otherwise never witness.

I struggled for ages to come up with a cute little digestible bite that I could post here and not hide behind a cut tag, something that would make enough sense without its context, something to show how witty and passionate she is, but this is the best I could do:

my horoscope said Try Something Different
so i thought i would have many girlfriends
instead of the traditional one.
love is like art
you know,
don't quit your day job.
-- "august september"

neurodivengeance's review against another edition

2.0

It was nice to hear Michelle's voice again while I'm waiting for Castle on the River Vistula but honestly I think this poetry was probably better performed than read. There are a couple of turns of phrase that make my heart cave in a bit but mostly it feels too vague, or like it's going in too many directions at once. Probably would've been a better read if I hadn't have read all her memoirs from the time already ... but I had, so. Oh, I will say though - the first poem made me laugh out loud. I'd love to see that read.

dylanmariah's review against another edition

4.0

One of my coworkers loaned this to me to read during short breaks throughout the day. I’m not incredibly interested in poetry, so I was surprised when I realized how much I was enjoying it. There were certain lines that were so raw and powerful that I would read them over and over again.