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jestintzi's review
5.0
Not sure what to even say here. These poems by Joelle Barron are sensational, they are angry and lovely and queer and funny and perfect. There's so much inside this book, so much more than I ever expected. Poems about motherhood, poems about sexual violence, poems about cancer and queer love. And also rhubarb!
I also want to say that the landscapes of the book feel very Canadian, which may be because Barron comes from northwestern Ontario like me (for context: nobody comes from northwestern Ontario). I feel like this book is that place: a wet, empty, beast-spackled sprawling woodland with the Canadian shield weaving through.
I'm so glad I stumbled upon a poem of Barron's on Plenitude Magazine so many years ago (the poem "All Summer Growing" in the collection), and ever since I've been following along, through this and that magazine, consistently gobsmacked, consistently loving their work. RITUAL LIGHTS is easily the book of poetry I've been looking forward to the most. Which is an easy time to disappoint a reader, unless you're Joelle Barron.
RITUAL LIGHTS is truly a whole fucking book, and as graceful and confident a poetry debut as I've read in quite a good long while. Read the hell out of it.
I also want to say that the landscapes of the book feel very Canadian, which may be because Barron comes from northwestern Ontario like me (for context: nobody comes from northwestern Ontario). I feel like this book is that place: a wet, empty, beast-spackled sprawling woodland with the Canadian shield weaving through.
I'm so glad I stumbled upon a poem of Barron's on Plenitude Magazine so many years ago (the poem "All Summer Growing" in the collection), and ever since I've been following along, through this and that magazine, consistently gobsmacked, consistently loving their work. RITUAL LIGHTS is easily the book of poetry I've been looking forward to the most. Which is an easy time to disappoint a reader, unless you're Joelle Barron.
RITUAL LIGHTS is truly a whole fucking book, and as graceful and confident a poetry debut as I've read in quite a good long while. Read the hell out of it.
dfparizeau's review
5.0
Could it be any more appropriate, given this book's title, that the most concise way I can describe these poems is in the words of Ezra Pound: "luminous details." These poems centre and take space for the feminine; for mothers, for survivors, for nature through some of the most breathtaking imagery I have read in quite some time.
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