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hsienhsien27's review
4.0
I’m kind of mad at myself for not reading this sooner. But by the time I got this, bought and signed by him, I kind of steamed myself out of poetry. And also because during that time I didn’t read as much poetry as I do now. Now that I do, I feel mad at myself for not buying and supporting more poets. Now I can’t get enough of it, especially since a lot of them, in my opinion are small/light reads, and are just as emotionally stimulating than your average novel, at least for me these days. And of course I don’t have a lot poetry books, so I read literary zines instead.
“The way, in death, one becomes
all the sounds one cannot make-
The sum total of everything
the living cannot say. Sometimes
we have to sing just to figure out
what we cannot say.”
Based on my vague memory, I read it a long time ago, this collection is totally different from American Kundiman, which was released five years before this came out. And this collection was released four years ago. So there’s a lot of change from AK to Boneshepards, which is a lot more story focused, sort of bittersweet, and feels a lot like reminiscing of the past, which I assume is most poetry, however this is a lot softer. The musicality of his poetry has become ballads or soft jazz piano in this collection, instead of the hip-hop of American Kundiman. It’s sentimental, personal, self-reflective, it just feels so much closer, delicate and sensitive, wary of the fact that the hardness is thawing out a bit. Of course, like his previous collection there are still some poems with violence, bloodshed, and dysfunction, but this one had a light ambiance.
“I know this much. There is a man in Puerto Plata who can tell me
everything I need to know about the history of France
in a language his great grandfathers made up. I’ve come back
to live in someone else’s house in the richest country
in the universe. None of us belongs anywhere
without love. Everything has began to die.
Some of us keep shouting your name.”
Maybe because I read it in my mother’s room where it was quiet with a faint white light? Maybe, I was just super ready to read this? It’s also more nostalgic, with some pondering of those who are dead or have died in some other form that doesn’t involve bloodshed. Nostalgia is a heavy theme in poetry, nostalgia is the reason why we tell stories, fictional or not.
It’s about dying as in leaving and never seeing you again and remembering as in reminiscing and mourning the fact that you won’t experience it once again.
“Like me,
they let all the languages of their world pass
through them, as if that were a way
of moving on, and the one word always
poised upon their tongue is goodbye.”
Rating: 4.5/5
“The way, in death, one becomes
all the sounds one cannot make-
The sum total of everything
the living cannot say. Sometimes
we have to sing just to figure out
what we cannot say.”
Based on my vague memory, I read it a long time ago, this collection is totally different from American Kundiman, which was released five years before this came out. And this collection was released four years ago. So there’s a lot of change from AK to Boneshepards, which is a lot more story focused, sort of bittersweet, and feels a lot like reminiscing of the past, which I assume is most poetry, however this is a lot softer. The musicality of his poetry has become ballads or soft jazz piano in this collection, instead of the hip-hop of American Kundiman. It’s sentimental, personal, self-reflective, it just feels so much closer, delicate and sensitive, wary of the fact that the hardness is thawing out a bit. Of course, like his previous collection there are still some poems with violence, bloodshed, and dysfunction, but this one had a light ambiance.
“I know this much. There is a man in Puerto Plata who can tell me
everything I need to know about the history of France
in a language his great grandfathers made up. I’ve come back
to live in someone else’s house in the richest country
in the universe. None of us belongs anywhere
without love. Everything has began to die.
Some of us keep shouting your name.”
Maybe because I read it in my mother’s room where it was quiet with a faint white light? Maybe, I was just super ready to read this? It’s also more nostalgic, with some pondering of those who are dead or have died in some other form that doesn’t involve bloodshed. Nostalgia is a heavy theme in poetry, nostalgia is the reason why we tell stories, fictional or not.
It’s about dying as in leaving and never seeing you again and remembering as in reminiscing and mourning the fact that you won’t experience it once again.
“Like me,
they let all the languages of their world pass
through them, as if that were a way
of moving on, and the one word always
poised upon their tongue is goodbye.”
Rating: 4.5/5
mgreco5's review
5.0
Wow. The music, the precise, beautiful language and the rhythm of Pat's work always blows me away. This collection has a force that can be felt in the chest. It's gritty, heart-wrenching and devastatingly gorgeous. A few poems that really stick out to me are "Guitar," "A Tradition of Pianos," and "Despedida Ardiente." Seriously good stuff and highly recommended.
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