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michaelashsmith's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.25
ahendricks040's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
This book arrived when I needed it & I am sure I will need it again in the future.
blaze_o_glory's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Pilgrim Bell contains a quiet anger easily confused with sadness or overlooked entirely. My favorite poems are An Oversight, Against Memory, and The Palace.
cgcpoems's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
This is the second collection I’ve read from Akbar & I enjoyed it just as much. These aren’t poems to read causally—they demand your attention, & are better when you give it.
antennaclasses's review against another edition
3.5
this is telling about me: my first thoughts midway through the book is that the poems are wildly inventive and greatly inviting but sometimes the sunshine feels a bit enforced? as though (and this is the clincher in my philosophy) speaking from a liberation I have not achieved yet or does not seem to really exist (the secret hope that my misery has company: is this just me or is this the polemic of our literary moment?)
also, of course, postcolonial trope of evaluating your english as a Choice mid-poem, often echoing past colonial violence. sometimes it shows up as grammar trickery. I like this version. sometimes it shows up as an etymology lesson. I don’t like this version. “my father speaks perfect english” is a perfect line and is also scary
mold_munchr's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
oh this one HITS
sara_shocks's review against another edition
4.0
Favorites: "The Miracle," "There are 7,000 Living Languages," "My Empire," "Forfeiting My Mystique," "Ultrasound," "Shadian Incident," "Reading Farrokzhad in a Pandemic," and "The Palace."