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taylorthiel's review
5.0
Dammit all to hell. There are people in the world writing like this and I would do just about anything to be one of ‘em
So grateful to step into this collection and learn from it. Meg Day has a special grasp on powerful diction and creating some of the most ingenious images I’ve ever read. This poetry is smart. It is deeply moving. Even though I couldn’t relate to some of it on a personal level, I was always moved by it.
Some of my fav poems are:
Things to say in a difficult year, or to the dying man I’ll never meet because I am not a man.
Another night at sea level
Tell me it’s not too late for me
And Once all the hounds have been called home
So grateful to step into this collection and learn from it. Meg Day has a special grasp on powerful diction and creating some of the most ingenious images I’ve ever read. This poetry is smart. It is deeply moving. Even though I couldn’t relate to some of it on a personal level, I was always moved by it.
Some of my fav poems are:
Things to say in a difficult year, or to the dying man I’ll never meet because I am not a man.
Another night at sea level
Tell me it’s not too late for me
And Once all the hounds have been called home
dotorsojak's review
4.0
A terrific book of modern poetry by a young deaf poet. I have been a long time reading this book, mostly because savoring. Day was kind enough to send me their book gratis, also signed. I have trouble following some of the poems (note that I don't say I'm fuddled about meaning) and the titles of quite a few poems seem to have an indirect at best relation to the literal denotation of the texts. On the other hand, most are easy to follow. My favorites are, in no particular order: "Ghazal for Finally Leaving What has already Left," "Once All the Hounds had been Called Home," "Brief Study on Surrender," "Batter My Heart Transgender'd God," "When They Took Her Breasts She Dreamt of Icarus," "Portrait of My Selves at Eleven, As Kings," and my favorite, "Somewhere, There is a Long Drive Waiting for Me." Many poems read like prayers or use explicitly religious language, which is not to suggest that they are in any way pious or dogmatic. There is great pain and sorrow and grief throughout. I have a few criticisms (when do I ever not?) but not going to express them now. I waver between awarding the book 4 or 5 stars. Probably should be 4.5 stars. In my world only books for the ages get 5 stars. It may be too early yet to decided it's a 5 star book. But this is damn good.
ariana_gleason's review
3.0
Not what I expected, but not bad. I'm glad I read it and would recommend it to people looking for a deep read.
shorelinezen77's review
5.0
Incredible! Seeing Meg read is even more powerful, and I hope in the future there will be more readings available online.
allyrose_is_awesome's review
4.0
I finally got around to finishing this collection we read in my creative writing class. Beautifully written, these poems are powerful and play with sound and space on the page in ways I wouldn’t think of. I really enjoyed these poems and I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to meet Meg Day and hear them speak on the writing process behind this book.
dtpsweeney's review
4.0
For me, this was a lightly mixed bag of a debut that was well worth the read. Day’s best poems are exquisite, and worth reading for. I’m excited to read what Day publishes next and to see how Day’s craft and voice will grow.
The poems sometimes felt more like they were “collected” than a “collection,” which is not me trying to be a persnickety parser of words, but rather to describe the sensation that some poems felt like they did not belong to the whole. There would be several sort of muted, lingering, thoughtful, ruminated poems searching experiences of loss and of grief and of how home changes with loss, and then you would get a poem sprinkled with lines like “Sit on the floor with me / & dial my frequency; station me static witness & open / my listening... / bellow my brass bones & help me relearn how to flinch.” It felt jarring. Day names the influence of Buddy Wakefield in the acknowledgements section, specifically for the poem “Keeper of the Hope Chest, Taker of the Temperature.” But I feel the influence of Wakefield and the tradition of associated spoken word artists showing up in other poems besides. These were (no shade, just my honest review) my least favorite poems; they were written to soar in ways that didn’t ring for me or feel like Day’s natural writing voice. Day was at best when writing in subtleties.
On the whole, I am very glad I read this collection. There are several painfully beautiful, thematically demanding, and ingeniously written poems here. “There’s Snow in the West,” the first poem in the collection, had me crying. The first poem! When I finished “If I Tell You This Secret, You Have to Keep It,” I gasped. Gems like these are scattered throughout and so worth the sifting for. Even the poems that didn’t strike me were, at worst, words I felt indifferent about. There was little to truly dislike. There was enough to love, and to come back.
The poems sometimes felt more like they were “collected” than a “collection,” which is not me trying to be a persnickety parser of words, but rather to describe the sensation that some poems felt like they did not belong to the whole. There would be several sort of muted, lingering, thoughtful, ruminated poems searching experiences of loss and of grief and of how home changes with loss, and then you would get a poem sprinkled with lines like “Sit on the floor with me / & dial my frequency; station me static witness & open / my listening... / bellow my brass bones & help me relearn how to flinch.” It felt jarring. Day names the influence of Buddy Wakefield in the acknowledgements section, specifically for the poem “Keeper of the Hope Chest, Taker of the Temperature.” But I feel the influence of Wakefield and the tradition of associated spoken word artists showing up in other poems besides. These were (no shade, just my honest review) my least favorite poems; they were written to soar in ways that didn’t ring for me or feel like Day’s natural writing voice. Day was at best when writing in subtleties.
On the whole, I am very glad I read this collection. There are several painfully beautiful, thematically demanding, and ingeniously written poems here. “There’s Snow in the West,” the first poem in the collection, had me crying. The first poem! When I finished “If I Tell You This Secret, You Have to Keep It,” I gasped. Gems like these are scattered throughout and so worth the sifting for. Even the poems that didn’t strike me were, at worst, words I felt indifferent about. There was little to truly dislike. There was enough to love, and to come back.
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