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amywoolsey_93's review against another edition
challenging
medium-paced
4.0
Jericho Brown makes eroticism holy and holiness erotic, threading the line between the physical and spiritual with intricate double entendres. I may never recover from his use of the verb "erect" at the end of "Dear Dr. Frankenstein."
omniscientreader's review against another edition
3.75
I really like this book, the writing is extremely gorgeous. But, i find most of the poems hard to comprehend—i really don't know, maybe it's because im still young. i genuinely don't know. i would really like to reread this next time and maybe at that time i will finally be able to understand what the poem speaks.
and i would like to share passages from this book that i found compelling and revolutionary
I let a man touch me until I bled,
Until my blood met his hunger
In that world, I was a black man.
Now, the bridge burns and I
Am as absent as what fire
Leaves behind.
Tell me that though the world ends us,
Lover, it cannot end our love
Of narrative. Don’t you have a story
For me?—like the one you tell
We talk about God
Because we want to speak
In metaphors.
Water? Is it blood that binds
Brothers? Or is it the Mississippi
Running through the fattest vein
Of America? When I say home,
Loneliness
Is a practice. Like medicine.
Like law,
We wrote our own Bible
And got thrown out of church.
I imagine
Someone who desires any
Worn piece of man must be
Willing to shoot or be shot.
Yes, she read the Bible,
Read all about war in heaven.
and i would like to share passages from this book that i found compelling and revolutionary
I let a man touch me until I bled,
Until my blood met his hunger
In that world, I was a black man.
Now, the bridge burns and I
Am as absent as what fire
Leaves behind.
Tell me that though the world ends us,
Lover, it cannot end our love
Of narrative. Don’t you have a story
For me?—like the one you tell
We talk about God
Because we want to speak
In metaphors.
Water? Is it blood that binds
Brothers? Or is it the Mississippi
Running through the fattest vein
Of America? When I say home,
Loneliness
Is a practice. Like medicine.
Like law,
We wrote our own Bible
And got thrown out of church.
I imagine
Someone who desires any
Worn piece of man must be
Willing to shoot or be shot.
Yes, she read the Bible,
Read all about war in heaven.
figgy_pudding's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
Loved it. Every new poem was my new favourite poem
trash_reader_'s review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
These poems were beautiful and haunting.
leerazer's review against another edition
3.0
1 Corinthians 13:11
When I was a child, I spoke as a child.
I even had a child's disease. I ran
From the Doberman like all children
On my street, but old men called me
Special. The Doberman caught up,
Chewed my right knee. Limp now
In two places, I carried a child's Bible
Like a football under the arm that didn't
Ache. I was never alone. I owned
My brother's shame of me. I loved
The words thou and thee. Both meant
My tongue in front of my teeth.
Both meant a someone speaking to me.
So what if I itched. So what if I couldn't
Breathe. I climbed the cyclone fence
Like children on my street and went
First when old men asked for a boy
To pray or to read. Some had it worse -
Nobody whipped me with a water hose
Or a phone cord or a leash. Old men
Said I'd grow into my face, and I did.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child.
I even had a child's disease. I ran
From the Doberman like all children
On my street, but old men called me
Special. The Doberman caught up,
Chewed my right knee. Limp now
In two places, I carried a child's Bible
Like a football under the arm that didn't
Ache. I was never alone. I owned
My brother's shame of me. I loved
The words thou and thee. Both meant
My tongue in front of my teeth.
Both meant a someone speaking to me.
So what if I itched. So what if I couldn't
Breathe. I climbed the cyclone fence
Like children on my street and went
First when old men asked for a boy
To pray or to read. Some had it worse -
Nobody whipped me with a water hose
Or a phone cord or a leash. Old men
Said I'd grow into my face, and I did.