Reviews

Best Barbarian: Poems by Roger Reeves

jewitt's review

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

afroabsurdist's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

5.0

savento95's review

5.0

I got to read an advanced copy of this book to choose excerpts for LitHub, and what a treasure it was. It's not every volume of poetry that over 80% of the poems in the book have been individually published. Reeve's conviction, his lyricism, and his presence make him a need to read.

jbmorgan86's review

2.0

National Book Award 2022 Read:

I’m not a dumb person. I’m educated. I have multiple degrees. I read constantly. I teach.

That being said, poetry like this makes me feel dumb. I read this from cover to cover and I couldn’t tell you what I read beyond a few themes. I read it aloud and appreciated some of the sound devices, but the meaning was totally lost on me. The collection comes with end notes about history, mythology, poetry, current events, etc. That was somewhat helpful.

This review says it all: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5007382872

adriatrees's review

On pause

the_vegan_bookworm's review

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Racial slurs, Racism, and Death

reviewsbylola's review

challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

jiayuanc's review

medium-paced

5.0

I knew from the first poem Grendel that this was going to be the Griffin Poetry winner for 2023. 

jhigginbottom's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

3.5

I really liked how he wrote about certain subjects, but something just wasn't clicking. Maybe just wasn't the time to read it. 

sageshort's review

5.0

must read. must re read. must revisit often