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servemethesky's review against another edition
4.0
Sometimes I feel like I’m bad at reading poetry- it’s hard to focus and remember the experience afterwards. I lose the thread, read the words but don’t connect fully
kelseymay's review against another edition
5.0
"Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love" (Copper Canyon Press, 2019) is, in my opinion, very underappreciated. It’s three months old and I’ve not seen a single gushing post, share, or write-up on it, which is a damn shame, as it’s easily in my poetry top five for 2019. Keith S. Wilson’s debut is graceful and gripping, descending into territory of Greek myths, racial tumult, and birds. The highest praise I can offer for "Fieldnotes" is that I want to write like Keith after reading it.
I finished this collection at the beginning of last week and have been revisiting a few specific images from these pages, including this powerful observation in “Augury“: “I remember being told I should never touch / a baby bird in its nest. That afterward, // the mother would rather let her children starve. / It isn’t true. But how many eggs // has the fantasy kept safe, / how many feathers made elegant, my hands clean and far away / to fold snowflakes or cranes?” Keith’s poems unearth small, succulent truths and set them rolling inside my heart.
Also reviewed at https://hyypeonline.com/2019/08/25/fieldnotes-on-ordinary-love/.
I finished this collection at the beginning of last week and have been revisiting a few specific images from these pages, including this powerful observation in “Augury“: “I remember being told I should never touch / a baby bird in its nest. That afterward, // the mother would rather let her children starve. / It isn’t true. But how many eggs // has the fantasy kept safe, / how many feathers made elegant, my hands clean and far away / to fold snowflakes or cranes?” Keith’s poems unearth small, succulent truths and set them rolling inside my heart.
Also reviewed at https://hyypeonline.com/2019/08/25/fieldnotes-on-ordinary-love/.
ash_ton's review against another edition
2.0
To be fair, I don't really like poetry unless it's simple and easy to understand; but I had to read this for class. I feel bad rating it so low, but I just... didn't get it - and I'm an English major.
courtneyfalling's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
"Moments are not for revision—
if they are lived honestly, they are open to one interpretation
only. They make you like a child.
Of course that’s what they make."
This has been on my radar for maybe two years, after Keith Wilson started teaching poetry at my college, and it has a lovable slowness that grew on me throughout the collection! I'd say it primarily focuses on love and relationship loss, Blackness, and mythology (including some Greek mythology) and the stories we tell ourselves, all with a friendly gentleness that made the poems read easily on the page and out loud.
Favorite poems:
if they are lived honestly, they are open to one interpretation
only. They make you like a child.
Of course that’s what they make."
This has been on my radar for maybe two years, after Keith Wilson started teaching poetry at my college, and it has a lovable slowness that grew on me throughout the collection! I'd say it primarily focuses on love and relationship loss, Blackness, and mythology (including some Greek mythology) and the stories we tell ourselves, all with a friendly gentleness that made the poems read easily on the page and out loud.
Favorite poems:
- Fieldnotes
- Mob
- Cincinnati Windy Grays
- Heliocentric
Side note: Who tagged this as "erotica" in their review?! I just wanna have a word...
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism
Minor: Sexual content
jessicabeckett's review against another edition
3.0
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Review originally posted here to Booked J. As always, a copy of this book was provided by the publisher or author in exchange for my honest review. This does not effect my opinion in any way. "Loving is misnomer, because you are expected of your heart's opinion on a sentence that is never completed, even as you are having it. Nothing must be more free than the feeling of the right to leave."
Poetry is the most intimate form of expressing our thoughts. The good, the bad. The passionate, the painful. It's telling a story--personal, fictional, anything--in a way that hits close to home. For Wilson, the prose mingles with personal experiences and a little mythology sprinkled in for good measure.
What I loved most about Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love is how the mixture of prose and mythology went together so well. I found myself in a trance for many of its pages and could feel the hum of Wilson's words for hours after I'd closed in on reading it.
While there were a few poems that I simply did not connect with, this does not--or should not--define your view of Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love, nor does it take away from the quality of writing. This is one of those collections that has something for everyone, but maybe won't work wholly for us all. At the end of the day, that's what makes it unique and standout amongst the surge of modern poetry.
Overall, I firmly believed Keith S. Wilson's art needs to be read. If you love poetry, be sure to add this to your list before the year is up--you won't regret it.
Review originally posted here to Booked J. As always, a copy of this book was provided by the publisher or author in exchange for my honest review. This does not effect my opinion in any way. "Loving is misnomer, because you are expected of your heart's opinion on a sentence that is never completed, even as you are having it. Nothing must be more free than the feeling of the right to leave."
Poetry is the most intimate form of expressing our thoughts. The good, the bad. The passionate, the painful. It's telling a story--personal, fictional, anything--in a way that hits close to home. For Wilson, the prose mingles with personal experiences and a little mythology sprinkled in for good measure.
What I loved most about Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love is how the mixture of prose and mythology went together so well. I found myself in a trance for many of its pages and could feel the hum of Wilson's words for hours after I'd closed in on reading it.
While there were a few poems that I simply did not connect with, this does not--or should not--define your view of Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love, nor does it take away from the quality of writing. This is one of those collections that has something for everyone, but maybe won't work wholly for us all. At the end of the day, that's what makes it unique and standout amongst the surge of modern poetry.
Overall, I firmly believed Keith S. Wilson's art needs to be read. If you love poetry, be sure to add this to your list before the year is up--you won't regret it.
sydneysghost's review
3.0
didn't love it, didn't really hate it either. however;
>Who could love you like this? Who else will sew you in the stars?
>Who could love you like this? Who else will sew you in the stars?
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