Reviews

I Am Nobody's Nigger by Dean Atta

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kellyinbookland's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

mugren's review against another edition

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4.0

Truthful poems that are witty and creative, and quite a few of us can relate to.

dariamerr's review against another edition

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I really liked the first half of the book. The poems tackled race and standing up in front of injustice which is very actual, also ways of expression and the importance and pain of writing. The writing style was also nice – saying that as someone who isn’t really into modern poetry – but the messages were the ones that hit me.

Some of my favorite poems were: Revolution, Therapy, Paper Cuts, Key to the City, Ego Extensions.

Then the second half was love poems. Which are not my favorites to begin with. But there were poems about one night stands and a lot of relationship toxicity, which kinda bothered me. I mean, if you realize your toxic and you only get into relationships with people to make yourself feel better and then dispose of them, don’t make it grand through poetry. If you’re going to talk about your flaws in poems, make me feel the wrongness of it, make it ugly. Don’t sugar-coat it and dress it in beautiful words, because there’s nothing beautiful or endearing about it. (Here I sound much more frustrated than I actually am on this matter, I don’t know why it came out this way.)

Of course, this is a personal thing since I’m very picky when it comes to love poems. This is how I interpreted some of them, which doesn’t mean I’m right. This is what I love most about poetry, everyone can understand what they want and no side is wrong.

In conclusion, this is a good choice if you want to pick up some poetry and it fits pretty well with current events. I’m just not really into love poems. That’s who I am as a person.

panditita's review against another edition

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I simply love this book... This phrase hunts me till now "Your broken heart is my biggest achievement"

bookswithabi's review against another edition

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3.0

The first half of this poetry collection was phenomenal. It was probably some of the best poetry I've ever read. However, I found the second half less strong, so that is why it is a 3 star for me. I would still highly recommend this collection, as I think the poetry was great.

swalls95's review against another edition

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4.0

This collection of poems are beautifully crafted; Dean Atta has a way of string the words together elegantly to create a wonderful pace and rhythm. My personal favourites are "Fatherless Nation" (I have personal experience of an absent father) and "Freedom of Love"