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inkdrinkers's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
3.0
"By the time I realize what we are? It is already too late. We are an urban novel you will skim over at Walmart, a four-minute smirk on Fox 8's face, what would occur if Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino produced a film under Eazy-E's direction." (X Things They Never Tell You About The Drug Dealer's Daughter)
Urbanshee is a raw and honest exploration of Freeman's life as a black woman, daughter, and poet as she navigates the grief of losing her father and her experiences growing up.
This collection covered so many topics! There were so many poems I really enjoyed, but my favorites were: Haint Blue, In Attempts to Bring You Back, Haint Black, Meet You At The Crossroads (Erasure), Paranoia, Urbanshee Predicts the Birth of Toni Morrison & Writes Her a Letter, I Wish I Could Have Kissed Devon Wilson on the Mouth, and The Such Thing as the Stupid Question. Overall, chapter four, a Name She Buried, was my favorite, as it contained a lot of poems and lines that I enjoyed and related to.
I find it difficult to talk about the things I dislike in poetry - because it could very well be the thing that someone else enjoyed most. I enjoyed a lot of Freeman's longer pieces that blurred the line between poetry and prose, but some of them did feel like they drug on or repeated themselves too frequently for my taste. I also wish that the over arching theme had been more present. The mythology aspect is definitely in these poems, but I wouldn't call the entire collection a focus on mythology like the title suggests as many of the poems don't contain references or allusions and are more focused on other literary and media references.
Overall, I did enjoy a lot of these poems, but there were only a handful I feel like I'd read again. Freeman has so much talent and I enjoyed this collection enough that I'm excited to pick up more work in the future!
Thank you to NetGalley and Button Poetry for providing me with a copy for an honest review.
Urbanshee is a raw and honest exploration of Freeman's life as a black woman, daughter, and poet as she navigates the grief of losing her father and her experiences growing up.
This collection covered so many topics! There were so many poems I really enjoyed, but my favorites were: Haint Blue, In Attempts to Bring You Back, Haint Black, Meet You At The Crossroads (Erasure), Paranoia, Urbanshee Predicts the Birth of Toni Morrison & Writes Her a Letter, I Wish I Could Have Kissed Devon Wilson on the Mouth, and The Such Thing as the Stupid Question. Overall, chapter four, a Name She Buried, was my favorite, as it contained a lot of poems and lines that I enjoyed and related to.
I find it difficult to talk about the things I dislike in poetry - because it could very well be the thing that someone else enjoyed most. I enjoyed a lot of Freeman's longer pieces that blurred the line between poetry and prose, but some of them did feel like they drug on or repeated themselves too frequently for my taste. I also wish that the over arching theme had been more present. The mythology aspect is definitely in these poems, but I wouldn't call the entire collection a focus on mythology like the title suggests as many of the poems don't contain references or allusions and are more focused on other literary and media references.
Overall, I did enjoy a lot of these poems, but there were only a handful I feel like I'd read again. Freeman has so much talent and I enjoyed this collection enough that I'm excited to pick up more work in the future!
Thank you to NetGalley and Button Poetry for providing me with a copy for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use, Alcohol, and Death of parent
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