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amanda_y8s's review
5.0
Saw a video of Morgan Parker reading of a piece from this collection and bought it on a whim. Loved every page.
carabee's review
4.0
THERE ARE MORE BEAUTIFUL THINGS THAN BEYONCE is a collection to grow on. There were more than a few allusions in the collection that sent me off to search engines, but I went happily, with succinct, luminous images buzzing in my head, like "For him you would be pumice shined to pearl" and "Some stars have aligned/ in our spines." These images lounge comfortably next to more brutally honest and simple thoughts like "art is nice but the question is how are you/making money are you for sale" and "I cannot believe/in how successful/and how alone I have been/today." Parker takes the kind of straightforward language that makes listeners fall in love with lyrics and slam poetry and infuses it with the caesuras and formatting sleights of hand that academia passes out to its poets.
Many thanks to Netgalley and Tin House for letting me have a sneak peak in exchange for my thoughts!
Many thanks to Netgalley and Tin House for letting me have a sneak peak in exchange for my thoughts!
kayleeaspen's review
3.0
I am an avid poetry reader, and this collection was definitely different from the type of poetry I usually read. I could sense the Black feminist ideals embedded in the poems, but for the most part, I couldn't grasp the meaning of most of the poems. There were a handful of poems that I understood and really enjoyed. Overall, I think this book is worth a read, but I definitely need someone to help me understand the take-away from this collection.
balletbookworm's review
5.0
So much to unpack in this slim volume. Bravo, Morgan Parker!
Going to have to sit with this one a bit. It makes me itchy - both the good and uncomfortable kinds of itchy - and there is such rhythm to the lines without actual “meter.”
Book #2 for Readathon!
Going to have to sit with this one a bit. It makes me itchy - both the good and uncomfortable kinds of itchy - and there is such rhythm to the lines without actual “meter.”
Book #2 for Readathon!
gdonahue's review
4.0
This was an engrossing reading experience for me, but I struggled in general with following the through-line of the collection. I don’t have a consistent experience of reading poetry and I have difficulty understanding it, so I am reading more poetry to figure out what I like and learn how to read it better. There were poems in this work that really worked for me, and some that went over my head. The language was consistently interesting and the metaphor and imagery used was often very fun and striking. I assumed there would be more overt commentary on Beyoncé as a person and an icon, and there was some, but it wasn’t the main focus of the work. From reading this, I think I’ve learned that I like poetry collections to have a consistent thematic focus or purpose, and this work was a bit more scattered in focus than I like, but it was also a very strong collection in terms of the individual quality of the poems.
sbelasco40's review
5.0
I don't read a lot of poetry these days, but every time I've picked up a contemporary poetry collection I've loved it, and this is no exception. I love how Parker manages to be both poignant and hilarious, hard-hitting and sharply humorous. It's about so many things I can't even begin to name them, but the collection reads like a narrative, like vignettes that make up a whole, and it's great.
minajor's review against another edition
1.0
i did not enjoy this at all. not a fan of beyonce but i love poetry, so wanted to give this book a chance. very disappointed.