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lillillilli's review
5.0
i’ve never sat down and just read a book of poetry before this. really beautiful
chanteld's review
3.0
I selected this poetry collection because of the cover. The collection is divided in three parts: true stories, oil and water, and letters from the flatlands.
I preferred the poems in oil and water, and my favourite poems from this segment were:
Shea Butter Manifesto
why you cannot touch my hair
Thursday morning, Newsbury street.
It was an interesting reading experience and for a small book it packs in a lot but ultimately the poems were too personal to the writer's lived experiences for me to understand them. Furthermore, I am reading an ebook copy and the mixed media and art included were too hard to decipher.
I preferred the poems in oil and water, and my favourite poems from this segment were:
Shea Butter Manifesto
why you cannot touch my hair
Thursday morning, Newsbury street.
It was an interesting reading experience and for a small book it packs in a lot but ultimately the poems were too personal to the writer's lived experiences for me to understand them. Furthermore, I am reading an ebook copy and the mixed media and art included were too hard to decipher.
gellifromtheblock's review
5.0
Essential reading for any girls and women made to feel othered by virtue of being who they are. Its poems, essays, and art are love letters to Chicago, black girlhood, and the moments that make growing up feel the way it does.
brooketreads's review
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
This was weird and beautiful. Maybe like life. I liked the lists like in “how I arrived.” I believe there were some real stories mixed in with fantastical endings - like cops interrogating Black boys without their parents, the boys jump on their bikes and the bikes start riding off in the air. The piece about her grandma and not being able to remember any sermons at her grandma’s church but remembering whose grandbaby she is 🥹 There were so many great lines throughout. Here are a couple of my favorite ones: (read these after you’ve read it)
- “… what I mean is I’ll eat you alive, slipping the blade in sideways, cutting nothing
because the space was always there.”
- “…-the whole messy lovely true story of myself…”
I loved this but it’s a little longer than the other two:
- “When it’s time to roll you have to keep everybody tethered to you
no matter how heavy or hungry or ugly they get.
You have to keep their soreness and their worst parts
And their smashed tin wants and their construction paper crowns
and their everything they ever wanted for you and for them.”
Content Warnings
Minor: Racism
leone107's review
5.0
I'm not big on poetry or short essays however Electric Arches is an exception. I enjoyed this body of work a great deal. My favorite piece, thus far is What I Talk About When I Talk About Black Jesus (come on now....).
"We are masters of the art of sacrifice; no one is more skilled at laying their greatest beloveds on the alter..."
-Eve L. Ewing
"We are masters of the art of sacrifice; no one is more skilled at laying their greatest beloveds on the alter..."
-Eve L. Ewing
nuhafariha's review
5.0
To quote Nicole Byer, “What a treat, what a dream.” I loved every inch of this wondrous book, the way the words sang themselves off the page, the swaying rhyme throughout. In particular, the small handwritten magical elements grabbed your heart like an eight year old trying to save the world in her mama’s kitchen gown cape.
lanidacey's review
3.0
I read this in less than an hour because I could not let "Addicted" be my first read of the new year. A decent collection with some great highlights; others were too regional or specific to really resonate with me.
ophee's review
2.0
I was a bit lost at times trying to follow where the author wanted to go, but then again I don't read a lot of poetry so that might be why. There were some interesting poems but I felt like I was jumping from one topic to the next.
Thank you Netgalley and Penguin for providing me with a copy.
Thank you Netgalley and Penguin for providing me with a copy.