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girlreactionreads's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Pretty much anytime you ask poets about the poetry they love, you hear Aracelis Girmay come up pretty fast. These are deeply rooted poems, grounded in particular times and spaces, with such tangible, material details--and yet so many of them could have been written right now, today, in this moment in time. What stood out to me the most was that all these poems feel like poems of resistance, poems of forward momentum in any circumstance, poems of the world might say no but I'll find my way to yes, just you wait and see.
My favorite was "Ode to the Watermelon", an old poem about Palestine that could just as surely be a today poem about Palestine. Oh how the river flows, yet stays the same.
My favorite was "Ode to the Watermelon", an old poem about Palestine that could just as surely be a today poem about Palestine. Oh how the river flows, yet stays the same.
scrow1022's review against another edition
4.0
Lyrical and moving, many I would return to and study for my own work. Beautiful and inspiring.
laurelinwonder's review against another edition
5.0
A fierce collection that does not shy away from genocide, rape, love, poetry that avoids the sentimental, and breaks the content wide open. I have a feeling the images, the propelling momentum of this collection will not soon leave me.
kiramke's review against another edition
5.0
Truly stunning. The truth and creativity and fierceness are suffused with such compassion and joy. This is the closest to sentimental poetry I could ever get. I adored Arroz Poetica, Ode to the Watermelon, Consider the Hands that Write this Letter, Santa Ana of Grocery Carts... honestly and several more.
lukenotjohn's review against another edition
4.5
I read Kingdom Animalia about a year ago and had really high hopes for this collection, its predecessor. Although it wasn't as strong or spellbinding as that book (and it'd be a bit shocking if it was, to be honest), I still found these to be really stunning as well. A key difference, to me, was that Kingdom Animalia seemed to all be speaking from the same place and all of the poems were echoing off of each other, whereas this felt a lot more disjointed. In some ways, this actually appeared intentional, a reflection of Girmay's familial geographic diversity (of course best illustrated in the stunning closing poem) and in that vein it works well. At other points, however, it felt like too much a shift to go from exploring war crimes to childhood memories; that isn't to say the transition shouldn't be made, but that it felt a bit jerky for me. With that said, she's certainly adept at both ends of the spectrum. Her more politicized, wide-angle poems express a seething rage and heartbreak of course best embodied by "Arroz Poetica" while her smaller-scale, personal pieces like "Santa Ana of Grocery Carts" carry a warmth and intimacy and vulnerability that's really engaging. Girmay has an expert intuition for rhythm, syntax, and repetition, the latter of which is probably most impressive of all considering its prevalence here and how stale or annoying that would be in the hands of most poets.
"Arroz Poetica" is the undeniable stand-out; I had to set the book down and walk around a bit after finishing it. "Then Sing," "Here," "Scent: Love Poem for the Pilón," and "Epistolary Dream Poem after Finding a Schoolbook Map" were my other top favorites with quite a few more not far behind them.
"Arroz Poetica" is the undeniable stand-out; I had to set the book down and walk around a bit after finishing it. "Then Sing," "Here," "Scent: Love Poem for the Pilón," and "Epistolary Dream Poem after Finding a Schoolbook Map" were my other top favorites with quite a few more not far behind them.
inelegancies's review against another edition
5.0
this is a book of poems that are not afraid
to love and i will always need to keep it nearby.
to love and i will always need to keep it nearby.
nathuffman97's review against another edition
5.0
Despite having many poems concerned with pain, sorrow, and trauma, the overwhelming feeling I got from this poetry collection was compassion, affection, and joy. The opening poem, Arroz Poetica was I think my favorite and the most powerful of them all.
jenception's review against another edition
5.0
The rhythms and sounds of these poems seem to match up with something within me - despite the fact that some of Girmay's topics are foreign to me, I feel a link of understanding. Especially like "Conjugation," "Consider the Hands That Write This Letter," "The Dog," and "Santa Ana of Grocery Carts."