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4.21 AVERAGE
4.21 AVERAGE
reflective
medium-paced
This book taught me how trauma carries across space and time. I love Donika Kelly and this book was harrowing, but a treat nonetheless.
Donika Kelly is phenomenal at both clarity and figurative language, with images, similes, and metaphors that cut to the emotion, and the bone: "I was born into a house of air," "a winged boar," "The tide pool crumples like a woman / into the smallest version of herself, bleeding onto whatever touches her," etc. The subject matter of her poems can be tough going, but that clarity and purpose serves her well. I'm learning from reading and rereading her poetry how to navigate and write about trauma and recovery, but also love, heartbreak, hope, and nature. Repeating images of nature, even nature suffering at the hands of humanity, offer dignity and grace, connection and sensuality. A fantastic second collection from an incredible poet.
Wow. This is an intense and enlightening collection of poems. Kelly takes trauma and double looks, and looks again, and looks again, creating a multifaceted perspective, to force closeness and distance between what has been done, what might have been done, what wasn't done, to look forward and backward through time to understand what trauma does, will do and what it creates inside of us. I was able to hear Kelly read a few of her poems at an Ellen Bass workshop and then hear her talk/lecture on trauma and poetry. She is truly brilliant in her language and her technique.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
challenging
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
emotional
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
I wish this was longer! Loved how each poem had callbacks/elements of previous poems so it was all interwoven. A beautiful but painful reckoning with childhood/family trauma and trying to find your place in this body and this world.