Reviews

From the New World: Poems 1976-2012 by Jorie Graham

areadingstan's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

I’m not sure how to sum up the experience I had of reading this quite large collection of poems by Jorie Graham. I’ve owned it since the module on Women’a Poetry I took during university, and then, only a few of the just over 100 poems had been read, and little was understood. 

I have now read them all, but the latter has not changed, because I no longer try to analyse every word in poetry, I just read the words and I’m not so bothered about understanding them, but I still feel them. And with Graham’s poetry, I feel a lot. A lot of the time I don’t even know what, I just know I feel something. Her words wash over me like a gentle tide and pull me further into the ocean she paints with 26 letters arranged in different orders on various parts of a page. 

To have read this book for a year has been to know it intimately, and for it to know me too. It has known different versions of me, different moods and different times. I am now a Jorie Graham fan. I will revisit these poems whenever I need to feel grounded and want to find something new from them, and I’m sure I always will. 

spacebee's review

challenging emotional inspiring reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.5