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beastreader's review against another edition
4.0
I thought this was a nice collection of poems. I enjoyed reading them. Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz really embraced the essence of love and loss of a mother. A truly heartfelt collection of poems. Some I liked more than others.
There is "My Mother Wants to Know if I'm Dead". Anyone who has a close relationship with their Mother can relate to this poem.
It goes like this:
ARE YOU DEAD? is the subject line of her email. The text outlines the numerous ways she thinks I could have died: slain by an axe-murderer, lifeless on the side of the highway, choked to death by smoke since I'm a city girl and likely didn't realize you needed to open the chimney flue before making a fire (and, if I do happen to be alive, here's a link to a YouTube video on fireplace safety that I should watch). Mom muses about the point of writing this email. If I am already dead, which is what she suspects, I wouldn't be able to read it. Any if I'm alive, what kind of daughter am I not to write her own mother to let her know that I've arrived at my fancy residency, safe and sound, and then to immediately send pictures of everything, like I promised her! If this was a crime show, she posts, the detective might accuse her of sending this email as a cover up for murder. How could she be the murderer, if she wrote an email to her daughter asking if she was murdered? her defense lawyers would argue at the trial. In fact, now that she thinks of it, this email is the perfect alibi for murdering me. Any that is something I should definitely keep in mind, of I don't write her back as soon as I have a fee goddamn second to spare.
Here is a little bit of the poem "On Getting Facials with My Mother"
Both of us trying to breathe deep, let go. Somewhere, years are being erased from my mother's face. She tells the facialist about me, her daughter, the writer down the hall. How we don't do stuff like this. How much we need it. After an hour, we're reunited. She looks beautiful: stripped down and glowing.
We put on our clothes and yes, we swallow hard when the cashier gives us the total, but we shake it off. We wear our new faces right into the sun, just like
we're told not to do. We can't help it.
The air feels too good, the future so bright.
"O Laughter"
O, Laughter, you are not forgotten.
My body is the jam jar you flew into.
You thought it'd be so sweet. You didn't realize it was made by crushing the most gentle of things. O, Laughter, Grief sees itself as a knife, carving out what needs to be seen.
See yourself as an ice skater, the knives on your feet. Sometimes the pain bursts out of me like a flock of starlings.
My throat releases everything but you. Laughter, be the slyest magician. Make me think it's easy work: this levitation.
I'll willingly step into the box, if you'd just cut me in half, spin my parts around, then make me whole again.
There is "My Mother Wants to Know if I'm Dead". Anyone who has a close relationship with their Mother can relate to this poem.
It goes like this:
ARE YOU DEAD? is the subject line of her email. The text outlines the numerous ways she thinks I could have died: slain by an axe-murderer, lifeless on the side of the highway, choked to death by smoke since I'm a city girl and likely didn't realize you needed to open the chimney flue before making a fire (and, if I do happen to be alive, here's a link to a YouTube video on fireplace safety that I should watch). Mom muses about the point of writing this email. If I am already dead, which is what she suspects, I wouldn't be able to read it. Any if I'm alive, what kind of daughter am I not to write her own mother to let her know that I've arrived at my fancy residency, safe and sound, and then to immediately send pictures of everything, like I promised her! If this was a crime show, she posts, the detective might accuse her of sending this email as a cover up for murder. How could she be the murderer, if she wrote an email to her daughter asking if she was murdered? her defense lawyers would argue at the trial. In fact, now that she thinks of it, this email is the perfect alibi for murdering me. Any that is something I should definitely keep in mind, of I don't write her back as soon as I have a fee goddamn second to spare.
Here is a little bit of the poem "On Getting Facials with My Mother"
Both of us trying to breathe deep, let go. Somewhere, years are being erased from my mother's face. She tells the facialist about me, her daughter, the writer down the hall. How we don't do stuff like this. How much we need it. After an hour, we're reunited. She looks beautiful: stripped down and glowing.
We put on our clothes and yes, we swallow hard when the cashier gives us the total, but we shake it off. We wear our new faces right into the sun, just like
we're told not to do. We can't help it.
The air feels too good, the future so bright.
"O Laughter"
O, Laughter, you are not forgotten.
My body is the jam jar you flew into.
You thought it'd be so sweet. You didn't realize it was made by crushing the most gentle of things. O, Laughter, Grief sees itself as a knife, carving out what needs to be seen.
See yourself as an ice skater, the knives on your feet. Sometimes the pain bursts out of me like a flock of starlings.
My throat releases everything but you. Laughter, be the slyest magician. Make me think it's easy work: this levitation.
I'll willingly step into the box, if you'd just cut me in half, spin my parts around, then make me whole again.
littlespider9's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
3.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Cancer and Death of parent
nashiraprime's review against another edition
5.0
Terminé el 2018 y empecé el 2019 con este libro. Es un libro generoso, honesto, hermoso. Me ha hecho llorar, reír, desear escribir otra vez. No conocía a la autora: ahora quiero leer todo lo que ha escrito.
kooksbooknook's review against another edition
5.0
A stunning book of prose. I almost cried several times at how connected I felt to her words.
cstefko's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 stars
I didn't love every poem, but man, did I cry buckets of tears reading this collection. About halfway through I started ugly crying and pretty much never stopped. This is because Aptowicz's collection deals predominantly with the grief of losing her mother. I am very close to my own mother, and even the thought of one day losing her is enough to upset me. Honestly, just trying to go back and find some lines to quote for this review is making me emotional! So for sheer emotional impact, I give this collection a big thumbs up. Where I was less impressed was with its technique... I particularly disliked the texting poems--they just struck me as lazy, harsh as that is to say. Several of the poems verged on Instapoet territory for me--though I guess Aptowicz is known for being a slam poet, a subset of poetry that I've always had an ambivalence towards. I mean, I think it can be done well, but so often it feels cheap to me (if I wanted to get meta about it, I think it's because my natural state is one of aloofness and actively trying not to appear earnest...). There will be individual lines that soar, but the entirety of the poem fails to come together in any coherent way. I like to feel like a poem is in conversation with the reader, but I don't want it to literally read like a conversation... like the poet is just talking. Idk. I guess this is turning into a debate with myself about what poetry is and what counts and what doesn't, and I didn't intend for this review to end up so harsh, so I'll get back to the things I did like. I liked the poems early on in the book about the mundanity of being a writer, her gratitude for her writing residency, and her mother's pride in her writing. I did feel a certain kinship with Aptowicz because I related to her sensitive nature and expressions of imposter syndrome. I'm rounding up for my star rating, because ultimately I felt a strong emotional connection to this collection, and I'm glad I read it.
tldr; I wasn't always in love with the craft of the poems, but many of them are moving and well worth your time.
I didn't love every poem, but man, did I cry buckets of tears reading this collection. About halfway through I started ugly crying and pretty much never stopped. This is because Aptowicz's collection deals predominantly with the grief of losing her mother. I am very close to my own mother, and even the thought of one day losing her is enough to upset me. Honestly, just trying to go back and find some lines to quote for this review is making me emotional! So for sheer emotional impact, I give this collection a big thumbs up. Where I was less impressed was with its technique... I particularly disliked the texting poems--they just struck me as lazy, harsh as that is to say. Several of the poems verged on Instapoet territory for me--though I guess Aptowicz is known for being a slam poet, a subset of poetry that I've always had an ambivalence towards. I mean, I think it can be done well, but so often it feels cheap to me (if I wanted to get meta about it, I think it's because my natural state is one of aloofness and actively trying not to appear earnest...). There will be individual lines that soar, but the entirety of the poem fails to come together in any coherent way. I like to feel like a poem is in conversation with the reader, but I don't want it to literally read like a conversation... like the poet is just talking. Idk. I guess this is turning into a debate with myself about what poetry is and what counts and what doesn't, and I didn't intend for this review to end up so harsh, so I'll get back to the things I did like. I liked the poems early on in the book about the mundanity of being a writer, her gratitude for her writing residency, and her mother's pride in her writing. I did feel a certain kinship with Aptowicz because I related to her sensitive nature and expressions of imposter syndrome. I'm rounding up for my star rating, because ultimately I felt a strong emotional connection to this collection, and I'm glad I read it.
tldr; I wasn't always in love with the craft of the poems, but many of them are moving and well worth your time.
csamura's review against another edition
5.0
I lost my mother a little more than 3 months ago. The wound is still fresh and raw, so many of these poems resonated and spoke truth to the depth and complexity of what I'm feeling. It was also a glimpse into the future, how I might feel on the first mother's day without her, or the anniversary of her death. Each poem was full of vulnerability, laying bare the pain of grief and the reality of such a loss. Aptowicz does a phenomenal job of characterizing her mother and the relationship they had, and what that relationship means and becomes after her death. Somehow the poem that made me truly sob was the very last one in the book. How I wish I had memories like that with my own mom. This was a tender and wrenching tribute to the love of a life time and the loss of a lifetime. Mostly I just want to thank the author for bringing this gorgeous collection into the world, I will treasure it forever.
sortascared's review against another edition
5.0
"Sometimes I look like a stranger,
a person I never thought I'd be.
Other times, I look like a woman
who is at least trying, like a person
that I am choosing
to become."
Anyway I cried a lot and called my mom.
a person I never thought I'd be.
Other times, I look like a woman
who is at least trying, like a person
that I am choosing
to become."
Anyway I cried a lot and called my mom.
maureenforrester's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
4.75