Reviews tagging 'Police brutality'

Homie: Poems by Danez Smith

11 reviews

mistercrow's review

emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Minor: Racism, Racial slurs, Death, Police brutality, and Self harm

lilawsahar's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Buy it! Read it! If you’re white, use it to develop some empathy! I’m white and my heart grew ten times the size. Off to go buy their other poetry collectives. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Racism, Hate crime, Mental illness, Grief, and Racial slurs

Minor: Classism, Transphobia, Suicide, Sexual content, Homophobia, Police brutality, Blood, and Gun violence

becksusername's review

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug use, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Racism, Violence, and Homophobia

therainbowshelf's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective tense fast-paced

5.0

Danez Smith’s poetry is reflective of life, and takes a hard look at racism, homophobia, and living with aids. There are a lot of striking lines in this book. I listened to the audio, so although I don’t think I got as much of the poems’ contents, it was fun listening to Danez perform his work. I also appreciated the intro explaining the real title of this collection and why he called it Homie.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Death, Suicide, Terminal illness, Homophobia, Police brutality, Grief, and Chronic illness

yellow_star's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

3.75

Overall this book is basically Angry Poems, and an aggressive theme. But most of it is fair. Like the line "poeming some men's hands off,  they know what they did" (paraphrase not exact words) is aggressive but fair. There is a poem in the beginning about a whole group beating one kid up though so maybe don't have young kids read this. 

There's also themes of racism, bigotry, etc. There are also the  related slurs. 

The nature poems are so fresh! I love the completely new to me imagery for nature.

The poverty poems are also completely relatable. 

I'm not a huge fan of poems that jump all over the place like a lot of modern literary poetry does, but each poem is usually about some topic and mostly continues the same conversation. There's still a little bit of chaotic unrelated subject changes but very little. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying

Moderate: Physical abuse, Body horror, Drug use, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Blood, Gore, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Violence, Classism, and Murder

Minor: Child death, Confinement, Death, and Slavery

rlgreen91's review

emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

What a gorgeous, gorgeous collection of poems.  A dear friend gave this to me for Christmas, and since I had a bit of time between book club selections, I decided to pick it up, with goal of reading a poem a day. I went into it with no expectations, which was a great idea. I was pleasantly surprised and thrilled by the many ways Smith conveyed and depicted friendship and community and grief in the poems.  If I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be "acknowledgements," and "self-portrait as '90s R&B video" was the most fun to read out loud.

Revisiting "fall poem" on this Sunday October evening is the best way to cap off this collection.  I'm already looked forward to the next thing I read by Smith. 5 stars.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs and Cursing

Moderate: Death, Police brutality, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Suicide, and Sexual content

Minor: Death of parent and Medical content

mxpringle's review

challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Racial slurs, Suicide, and Grief

Moderate: Self harm, Mental illness, Homophobia, Sexual content, and Police brutality

Minor: Slavery, Violence, Drug use, Alcohol, Colonisation, Classism, and Blood

egmamaril's review against another edition

dark emotional funny reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Police brutality, and Grief

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts

gay's review against another edition

emotional slow-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Police brutality, and Suicide

invaderlinz's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Grief, Gun violence, Homophobia, Murder, Police brutality, Racism, Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, and Violence