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emmaito's review against another edition
5.0
The first published book of poetry written by a Marshallese author, Iep Jaltok, is a powerful, haunting, & beautiful collection. Through it, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner raises a call to action, as she demands justice in the face of devastating effects of climate change on her home island. Her writing covers themes of colonialism, racism, forced migration, & more, & each poem begs to be read slowly & carefully. This book is a treasure that I encourage yall to read.
Excerpt from "History Project":
At fifteen I decide
to do my history project
on nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands
time to learn my own history
I weave through book after article after website
all on how the U.S. military once used
my island home
for nuclear testing
I sift through political jargon
tables of nuclear weapons
with names like Operation Bravo
Crossroads
and Ivy
quotes from american leaders like
90,000 people are out there. Who
gives a damn?
Excerpt from "History Project":
At fifteen I decide
to do my history project
on nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands
time to learn my own history
I weave through book after article after website
all on how the U.S. military once used
my island home
for nuclear testing
I sift through political jargon
tables of nuclear weapons
with names like Operation Bravo
Crossroads
and Ivy
quotes from american leaders like
90,000 people are out there. Who
gives a damn?
_rusalka's review against another edition
5.0
So it happened. I found a poetry book I cannot stop thinking about. I found a poetry collection that made me stop and find Lexx and make him listen to the poems I had just read. I found poetry that connected.
Not all of this book did it for me. There were certain poems that I just did not have the cultural experience or understanding to connect with. But I appreciated them and their teachings.
But others. Others about colonialism, nuclear testing, racism both from within and outside the Pacific communities, climate change and impacts, health issues within Indigenous communities, internalised racism, politics... they all resonated. And at times resonated with a punch to the gut.
And that is not to say this tiny book is bleak. It is funny and insightful, it just doesn't gloss over the massive impacts that the Marshall Islands (which includes Bikini Atoll for those of us old enough to remember that name. I didn't know that until this book) have experienced over the past 150 years or so.
I have never understood 'modern' poetry before. It can pretty, but why not write prose? But this is a collection that shows why you use poetry as a medium, where a perfect phrase and no other fluff, structured in the simplest way is art with words, and sometime literally is art with words.
I'll be thinking about these poems for a long time.
Not all of this book did it for me. There were certain poems that I just did not have the cultural experience or understanding to connect with. But I appreciated them and their teachings.
But others. Others about colonialism, nuclear testing, racism both from within and outside the Pacific communities, climate change and impacts, health issues within Indigenous communities, internalised racism, politics... they all resonated. And at times resonated with a punch to the gut.
And that is not to say this tiny book is bleak. It is funny and insightful, it just doesn't gloss over the massive impacts that the Marshall Islands (which includes Bikini Atoll for those of us old enough to remember that name. I didn't know that until this book) have experienced over the past 150 years or so.
I have never understood 'modern' poetry before. It can pretty, but why not write prose? But this is a collection that shows why you use poetry as a medium, where a perfect phrase and no other fluff, structured in the simplest way is art with words, and sometime literally is art with words.
I'll be thinking about these poems for a long time.
bexrecca's review against another edition
5.0
Absolutely incredible. The words burrow into you and stay there. The shape of the poems, the content, everything. Wow.
lunabbly's review against another edition
5.0
Everyone should definitely read -- it's a great summary of the impact of climate change and how that is changing the Pacific Islands, in particular the Marshall Islands.
I also love how she weaved in mythology, folklore, and even her own birthing experience. Incredibly talented, poetic, and just smart.
I also love how she weaved in mythology, folklore, and even her own birthing experience. Incredibly talented, poetic, and just smart.
alic59books's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
tense
fast-paced
5.0
siria's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
4.25
A slim but powerful collection of poems from the Marshallese author and activist Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner. She is an accomplished poet, one who uses her voice to insist on the humanity of the Marshallese ("We are sweaty hands shaking / another sweaty hand in heat / Tell them we are days and nights hotter / than anything you can imagine / We are little girls with braids / cartwheeling beneath the rain") in the face of, in spite of, the appalling ways that her people have been treated in recent centuries.
Jetn̄il-Kijiner is frank about the very real dangers that her nation faces from climate change (the Marshall Islands are, on average, no more than 2 metres above sea level), and the ongoing health impacts from the U.S. military's mid-twentieth-century use of their country and its people as guinea pigs for nuclear testing (miscarriages bring forth "jelly babies/tiny beings with no bones/skin—red as tomatoes"; the young and the old die painful deaths from cancer). Yet at the same time she also celebrates Marshallese culture, and shows us the rich texture of life that the whole world would lose if the Marshallese lose their islands.
Not all of the poems work as well for me as did others—a defter touch would sometimes have served Jetn̄il-Kijiner better—but there's no doubting the passion which imbues all of them. Recommended.
Jetn̄il-Kijiner is frank about the very real dangers that her nation faces from climate change (the Marshall Islands are, on average, no more than 2 metres above sea level), and the ongoing health impacts from the U.S. military's mid-twentieth-century use of their country and its people as guinea pigs for nuclear testing (miscarriages bring forth "jelly babies/tiny beings with no bones/skin—red as tomatoes"; the young and the old die painful deaths from cancer). Yet at the same time she also celebrates Marshallese culture, and shows us the rich texture of life that the whole world would lose if the Marshallese lose their islands.
Not all of the poems work as well for me as did others—a defter touch would sometimes have served Jetn̄il-Kijiner better—but there's no doubting the passion which imbues all of them. Recommended.
paulap's review against another edition
fast-paced
4.0
This was an excellent collection of poems tackling racism, the use of Micronesian islands as test grounds for nuclear bombs and the cancer that resulted in those regions, and climate change and how the sea rising is changing these countries. The second to last poem in particular hit me hard. Really good collection overall:
yuukat's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.75