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lifeinpoetry's review
5.0
After having read poetry books by other authors in the past month that didn't quite capture me Natalie Wee's Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines has revitalized my love for poetry. I am wanting to quote dozens of lines, she has me nodding along to many more. I've read this book more than once and it still rings true. I am looking forward to seeing more from her and am eagerly awaiting her next book's release in 2018.
coslyons's review
4.0
So I bought this book because I was familiar with Natalie Wee's poetry from tumblr. She writes phrases that pick up power like a steam engine train. I don't often write in books, but there were some sections I had to underline because I felt so understood despite the fact I've never even met her. My favorite poems were "On Average, Human Beings Survive 7 Days On Water Alone" and "The Theory of Magic".
The only reason I rated it four stars instead of five because there were a couple of phrases I had to read multiple times because they didn't make sense grammatically and that threw me a little. It could be that I just have a weak understanding of poetry, but I was unsure of what meaning those sentences were suppose to convey, and it may have been a slight case of style over substance?
Honestly, great poetry book from a great poet, and definitely worth checking out!
The only reason I rated it four stars instead of five because there were a couple of phrases I had to read multiple times because they didn't make sense grammatically and that threw me a little. It could be that I just have a weak understanding of poetry, but I was unsure of what meaning those sentences were suppose to convey, and it may have been a slight case of style over substance?
Honestly, great poetry book from a great poet, and definitely worth checking out!
windbreak's review
challenging
inspiring
reflective
4.0
urgh.... when words hurt ur feelings.... natalie wee saving me at age 17 and then forever after.... whats up with that
kell_xavi's review
3.0
This would be a good collection for someone new to poetry, affected by loneliness or mental illness, someone who likes the style and concepts of slam poetry, or a youngish reader / writer looking for inspiration or something to relate to in their own life. These poems are all a combination of a small cauldron of ideas, often used in similar ways again and again:
fire + knife + desire + flight + shadow + fruit + grave + reversal + bruise + heart + teeth + salt water / tides + alone
Wee has some striking, original lines, but, though the collection has a strong sense of the personal, her emotions are often contained within common metaphors or lose their grounding in comparisons that are too little explained for the reader to follow. Wee has a great potential, but this collection feels like it's on the way to something, rather than having reached its goal. Some lines that show Wee's heart and talent:
the city lights fell away like fields of grain/ bent under wind
un/ -earthing myself each time/ I kneel into a dream where I/ am good & loved.
All we know of belonging/ is keeping hand to escape pod.
Tongue unspooling the alphabet of distress/ signals past.
you are the wreckage,/ you are the fire &/ you are also holding an axe/
which is all to say/ that you are trying to save yourself/ from yourself.
—J.J. Espinoza, Rupi Kaur, Mitski (I am the forest, I am the fire, I am the witness watching it), and now Natalie Wee all have lines about being both [forest] fire and the burning thing. Cataloguing this for an essay or a theory about female identity, strength and destruction.
being with yourself/ when running with your eyes closed is/ the closest you will ever be to flight./ No matter the perils of wax or water./ You want to remember you're flesh/ the way anything with wings rises most/ in a fire. You want to be filled—if only/ by light.
—I love Icarus references that have to do with depression and (loneliness and) youth. Intentional recklessness.
The poems I felt best expressed Wee's intent, and used her chosen images well:
(I) Mirror
Letters from Persephone*
Enough to Leave*
Blue Moon*
On Average
Close Encounters
(II) Statistically Speaking - made into trees, lumber, fire, continuing…
(III) Therapy Talk
The Best Thing I Ever Invented
Said the Apple to the Girl - better on a sad day
D-Colonize
Coming of Age - (?) "reckless thrashing"
Lonely
Sunlight
We can be sun-bodied / arrows in flight,/ uncomplicated/ & necessary.
fire + knife + desire + flight + shadow + fruit + grave + reversal + bruise + heart + teeth + salt water / tides + alone
Wee has some striking, original lines, but, though the collection has a strong sense of the personal, her emotions are often contained within common metaphors or lose their grounding in comparisons that are too little explained for the reader to follow. Wee has a great potential, but this collection feels like it's on the way to something, rather than having reached its goal. Some lines that show Wee's heart and talent:
the city lights fell away like fields of grain/ bent under wind
un/ -earthing myself each time/ I kneel into a dream where I/ am good & loved.
All we know of belonging/ is keeping hand to escape pod.
Tongue unspooling the alphabet of distress/ signals past.
you are the wreckage,/ you are the fire &/ you are also holding an axe/
which is all to say/ that you are trying to save yourself/ from yourself.
—J.J. Espinoza, Rupi Kaur, Mitski (I am the forest, I am the fire, I am the witness watching it), and now Natalie Wee all have lines about being both [forest] fire and the burning thing. Cataloguing this for an essay or a theory about female identity, strength and destruction.
being with yourself/ when running with your eyes closed is/ the closest you will ever be to flight./ No matter the perils of wax or water./ You want to remember you're flesh/ the way anything with wings rises most/ in a fire. You want to be filled—if only/ by light.
—I love Icarus references that have to do with depression and (loneliness and) youth. Intentional recklessness.
The poems I felt best expressed Wee's intent, and used her chosen images well:
(I) Mirror
Letters from Persephone*
Enough to Leave*
Blue Moon*
On Average
Close Encounters
(II) Statistically Speaking - made into trees, lumber, fire, continuing…
(III) Therapy Talk
The Best Thing I Ever Invented
Said the Apple to the Girl - better on a sad day
D-Colonize
Coming of Age - (?) "reckless thrashing"
Lonely
Sunlight
We can be sun-bodied / arrows in flight,/ uncomplicated/ & necessary.
canonicallyanxious's review
5.0
5/5 stars
Things I liked:
-Every single goddamn word
-man idk. IDK. i'm not a poetry expert at all so I can't write intelligently about poetry and what it makes me feel but there is just something so... intimate and raw and personal about this collection. i relate to it so so much as someone who identifies as a queer asian wlw-adjacent identifying person. i'm so impressed with the use of language, the care put into the format and structure of each poem, just everything. this collection is beautiful.
Things I didn't like:
-Not a damn thing
Overall impressions: after I finish writing this review i'm going back to this book, flipping to the first page, and rereading it from the start
Favorite poems: Either/Or/Other; on average, human beings survive 7 days on water alone; least of all; therapy talk; on the queer girl fantasy
Things I liked:
-Every single goddamn word
-man idk. IDK. i'm not a poetry expert at all so I can't write intelligently about poetry and what it makes me feel but there is just something so... intimate and raw and personal about this collection. i relate to it so so much as someone who identifies as a queer asian wlw-adjacent identifying person. i'm so impressed with the use of language, the care put into the format and structure of each poem, just everything. this collection is beautiful.
Things I didn't like:
-Not a damn thing
Overall impressions: after I finish writing this review i'm going back to this book, flipping to the first page, and rereading it from the start
Favorite poems: Either/Or/Other; on average, human beings survive 7 days on water alone; least of all; therapy talk; on the queer girl fantasy
emdpal's review
5.0
In Our Body & Other Fine Machines, Natalie Wee skillfully weaves a poetry collection that is less an experience of merely reading and more an immersion of the deepest and most transcendental kind. With her expert use of rich and bone-bearing language, Wee draws her readers into poetry that, above all else, circles hungrily around what it means to be human. She refuses to shy away from the feelings we perpetually avoid—fear, anger, longing. Rather, she relishes in them with a tenderness that seeps off the page, focusing especially upon the complexities and vehemence of desire, which she captures in a way that creates an earthquake in the body.
Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines is a beautiful study in honesty; Wee allows us to witness her dealings with everything, from sexuality to the immigrant experience, from survival to the body itself. This poetry collection simply blooms, extending itself beyond the confines of the page into your own heart as she copes with the wild and wonderful experience of life—the heartbreak, the elation, the all-encompassing anxiety.
Despite this blend of jagged emotions, Wee leaves us with a beautiful message of hope: “We can be sun-bodied / arrows in flight, / uncomplicated / & necessary” (from “Let Us Be Fireflies”).
And with works of art like this in our shaking hands, I truly believe we will be.
Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines is a beautiful study in honesty; Wee allows us to witness her dealings with everything, from sexuality to the immigrant experience, from survival to the body itself. This poetry collection simply blooms, extending itself beyond the confines of the page into your own heart as she copes with the wild and wonderful experience of life—the heartbreak, the elation, the all-encompassing anxiety.
Despite this blend of jagged emotions, Wee leaves us with a beautiful message of hope: “We can be sun-bodied / arrows in flight, / uncomplicated / & necessary” (from “Let Us Be Fireflies”).
And with works of art like this in our shaking hands, I truly believe we will be.
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