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mothgender's review
5.0
Currently crying, review to follow.
I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book wrecked me, and I mean that in a good way. It's a heartbreakingly honest collection dealing with the realities of being queer in Nigeria. Reading it felt important somehow. This collection was beautiful and I had to read it in short doses because it just made me so emotional.
I'd highly recommend picking this up, but be sure you're in the right headspace to do so.
I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book wrecked me, and I mean that in a good way. It's a heartbreakingly honest collection dealing with the realities of being queer in Nigeria. Reading it felt important somehow. This collection was beautiful and I had to read it in short doses because it just made me so emotional.
I'd highly recommend picking this up, but be sure you're in the right headspace to do so.
nuhafariha's review
4.0
ARC courtesy of NetGalley
Sacrament of Bodies is Romeo Oriogun's painful, delicate and gorgeous manifesto of what it means to be bisexual in a country where you are not accepted. Each poem builds on the last, touching on the intricate battle between self love and familial duty, societal expectations and sexual curiosity, the sand that loves the sea but can only hold its castoffs, the sea that loves the sand but can never hold its weight.
Sacrament of Bodies is Romeo Oriogun's painful, delicate and gorgeous manifesto of what it means to be bisexual in a country where you are not accepted. Each poem builds on the last, touching on the intricate battle between self love and familial duty, societal expectations and sexual curiosity, the sand that loves the sea but can only hold its castoffs, the sea that loves the sand but can never hold its weight.
ceallaighsbooks's review
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
“And the vision came to Femi under the orange tree, at a place where the hunger was greater than the fear and he turned to his people and said ‘a boy shall see another boy and he shall call the boy good, for his body was created to be love and he shall walk into this body and realize that this language was already his and the shame shall fall way away because love is love and he shall bring him to his father’s house and they shall be one.’”
— from “The Lost Chapter of the Bible Written after God Stopped Receiving the Smoke of Burnt Flesh”
TITLE—Sacrament of Bodies
AUTHOR—Romeo Oriogun
PUBLISHED—2020
PUBLISHER—University of Nebraska Press
GENRE—poetry
SETTING—Nigeria
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—queer love, Nigeria, Light & Shadow, forbidden love, homophobia, fire & water & blood, sensuality & passion, Christian elements, oppressed & persecuted identities, “guilt of the exile”, bisexuality, Blackness, childhood & social trauma, Death & grief
WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
STORIES—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“Tell me this is not love,
tell me this is not how couples run into sunsets.
Tell me this is not the universe saying love is eternal
to two bodies traveling through the sea as salt.
…
I allow light to preserve me, I allow it to slash me into songs
traveling through the forest softly as dew.”
— from “Kumbaya”
My thoughts:
This gorgeous poetry collection is written in my favorite style of poetry (in terms of the form, language, voice, rhythm, diction, etc.—sorry I don’t know poetry well enough to be more specific about how this style is actually described etc. 😅) and the queer themes and beautiful, sensual descriptions of physical and spiritual love were so poignant and resonated so deeply with me. I also really liked the progression of the poems as I thought it evoked a kind of emotional, mental, and spiritual development in the narrative voice that subtly parallels a person’s development across their lifetime.
“And the vision came to Femi under the orange tree, at a place where the hunger was greater than the fear and he turned to his people and said “a boy shall see another boy and he shall call the boy good, for his body was created to be love and he shall walk into this body and realize that this language was already his and the shame shall fall way away because love is love and he shall bring him to his father’s house and they shall be one.”
— from “The Lost Chapter of the Bible Written after God Stopped Receiving the Smoke of Burnt Flesh”
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
CW // homophobia, lynching (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)
Further Reading—
- THE DEATH OF VIVEK OJI, by Akwaeke Emezi
- CONTENT WARNING: EVERYTHING, by Akwaeke Emezi
- BLESS THE DAUGHTER RAISED BY A VOICE IN HER HEAD, by Warsan Shire
- TE KAIHAU: THE WINDEATER, by Keri Hulme
gothicvamperstein's review
3.0
The poems in this collection are moving, dealing with how it is to be bisexual in a country that does not accept who you are.
globetrottingcat's review
4.0
I received an ARC through netgalley. One of my goals is to read was to read a collection of poems and Sacrament of Bodies fit the bill of exploring more works by queer writers with the intersection of race and sexuality. It was an interesting read of understanding marginality in a culture that being queer remains to be taboo. The rawness and emotions are evident in each piece with a tying of themes thread throughout the collection. The stories are youthful, coming of age and coming out narrative and there is this sense of shared experience globally among queer men. The reach for acceptance from mother is powerful as he explores grief of being true to oneself but still craving the love of family. And the violence of fathers and religion is seen through his description of living in the shadows trying to find the light.
“I’m in a bus station
Saying bye to boys searching for cities
Where they can hold hands and walk on beaches.
I know what it means to live here
With words invented for hate, with wounds asked to be silent.
And when they leave, I want to whisper into ears
Filled with the fear of dying in the Sahara
Do not forget I still live here.
“I’m in a bus station
Saying bye to boys searching for cities
Where they can hold hands and walk on beaches.
I know what it means to live here
With words invented for hate, with wounds asked to be silent.
And when they leave, I want to whisper into ears
Filled with the fear of dying in the Sahara
Do not forget I still live here.
munaagwa's review
4.0
there were some heavy-hitters in here. i was especially enamored by the stories and the images in the final handful of poems, i feel like that's where i really connected.
keondra's review
4.0
Sacrament of Bodies is a beautiful, heart-wrenching collection exploring themes of sexuality, freedom, grief, loss, family, belonging, and identity. Oriogun excels at presenting the realities of being queer in a culture where expressing that identity is not only dangerous, but deadly. Each poem carries a great weight, requiring the reader to sit with it for a bit before moving on to the next. It is definitely not a book to be read in one sitting. It is to be savored and grappled with over time. Some standouts for me: Departure, At Udi, and Prelude to Freedom.
*i received a complimentary advanced copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*
*i received a complimentary advanced copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*
messbauer's review
5.0
Incredibly powerful and achingly beautiful. Oriogun’s poetry is some of the most moving I have ever read. I will be thinking about this collection for a long time.