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kranber's review
5.0
haven’t read many poetry collections but this one feels different. it’s so existential, so obsessed with the borders between life and death and the way we’re all connected in everyday things & nature. i love poetry that can handle these existential topics with subtlety and grace, without leaning too much into them. she handles them deftly & so beautiful. highly recommend you at least read the first poem of this collection:
Oh, body, be held now by whom you love.
Whole years will be spent, underneath these impossible stars,
when dirt's the only animal who will sleep with you
& touch you with
its mouth.
Oh, body, be held now by whom you love.
Whole years will be spent, underneath these impossible stars,
when dirt's the only animal who will sleep with you
& touch you with
its mouth.
eviebee17's review
emotional
medium-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
mgreco5's review
5.0
Phenomenal! I just love Ara's expansiveness...this book includes so much: self-reflection, family history, nature, dirt. For me, the line that sums up the book is "I want to know what to do/with the dead things we carry" from her poem "This Morning the Small Bird Brought a Message from the Other Side." These "dead things" are not just literal; they can be lost relationships, lost items, Aracelis' childhood self. And she carries them everywhere. They are ever-present. This book is at once haunting and beautiful.
lamusadelils's review
4.0
Qué bello.
"I carry my meat over the earth’s lion mouth
& slowly feed my bodies to the dirt"
"I carry my meat over the earth’s lion mouth
& slowly feed my bodies to the dirt"
lukenotjohn's review
5.0
This is a truly phenomenal collection. It reads like witchcraft: haunting, evocative, and elegiac while still reaching some soaring, triumphant heights.
Modern poetry is a genre I am still growing accustomed to, which may be the reason why a handful of these didn't work for me and kept it from being a 5-star (edit: after almost a year, I've thought of this collection so often that I've realized it is a 5-star after all), but the majority were spellbinding with a handful of true standouts listed below. Death, when it is not the explicit focus, lingers and looms at the edges of each poem. At times this takes the form of a sort of coy, smirking morbidity, but more often (and more enchantingly) it manifests as the ache of grief Girmay invites us into with startling vulnerability.
"Abuelo, Mi Muerto," Ode to the Little 'r'," "Self-Portrait as the Snail," "Portrait of a Woman as a Skein," and especially "To the Husband," and "This Morning the Small Bird Brought a Message from the Other Side" were my favorites.
Modern poetry is a genre I am still growing accustomed to, which may be the reason why a handful of these didn't work for me and kept it from being a 5-star (edit: after almost a year, I've thought of this collection so often that I've realized it is a 5-star after all), but the majority were spellbinding with a handful of true standouts listed below. Death, when it is not the explicit focus, lingers and looms at the edges of each poem. At times this takes the form of a sort of coy, smirking morbidity, but more often (and more enchantingly) it manifests as the ache of grief Girmay invites us into with startling vulnerability.
"Abuelo, Mi Muerto," Ode to the Little 'r'," "Self-Portrait as the Snail," "Portrait of a Woman as a Skein," and especially "To the Husband," and "This Morning the Small Bird Brought a Message from the Other Side" were my favorites.
awkwardreader13's review
2.0
Not for me, but I liked the poem "Science"
A lot of it was sort of meaningless to me, and it felt like Girmay was describing something personal, in an almost TOO PERSONAL way, as it didn't make much sense to me/ didn't make me feel anything.
A lot of it was sort of meaningless to me, and it felt like Girmay was describing something personal, in an almost TOO PERSONAL way, as it didn't make much sense to me/ didn't make me feel anything.
lamontslament's review
emotional
reflective
medium-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
4.0
A strong collection of poems. Some more easily entered than others, but all came clearly from a tender heart.
jessferg's review
3.0
This is the first time I've read Girmay so I can't compare this to her other works but simply comparing these poems to each other shows a broad range, but also some inconsistency, in her writing.
I am very drawn to her use of the natural world, particularly birds and other animals, to explain human life and emotion in these poems. Most interesting are the times when the words are familiar but together the reader is at a loss to define the meaning and is simply left with the intention and emotion. At the end of "They Tell Me You Are Gone" Girmay writes,
"...& we wake up wearing each other's clothes:
spider wearing my mouth like a room,..."
and all the meaning is tied up simply in what comes before and after, not in the actual sentence, despite it's jarring and beautiful construction and strange, if not actually imaginable, imagery. I doubt most poetry enthusiasts will be happy to hear this comparison, but it reminds me of Jeff Tweedy's poetry and the often construction of familiar words which just aren't supposed to go together. Girman's mastery at forcing a dawning comprehension on her reader is, however, more skilled.
Other poems contain phrases that feel like sudden breakthroughs. The clarity and simplicity stops the reader cold in an entirely different manner:
"All the songs you know are from a different country.
The fruits of your father's poems
do not grow here." - from "Portrait of the Woman as a Skein"
And these gems are worth any previous or prior struggles to decipher or translate Girmay's language.
The very first poem, and the book's title, was so moving that I read it and immediately put the book aside for the next two weeks:
The last stanza:
"I see a plant in the window of the house
my brother shares with his love, their shoes. & there
he is asleep in bed
with this same woman whose long skin
covers all of her bones, in a city called Oakland,
& their dreams hang above them
a little like a chandelier, & their teeth
flash in the night, oh, body.
Oh, body, be held now by whom you love.
Whole years will be spent, underneath these impossible stars,
when dirt's the only animal who will sleep with you
& touch you with
its mouth."
Forgive my overly academic exclamation here but, holy shit. "...whose long skin covers all of her bones." That alone - wow.
I wouldn't recommend this for those simply dipping toes into poetry, per se, but I don't consider myself to have a huge breadth of poetry or interpretative skill and I still enjoyed this quite a bit. Give it a shot.
I am very drawn to her use of the natural world, particularly birds and other animals, to explain human life and emotion in these poems. Most interesting are the times when the words are familiar but together the reader is at a loss to define the meaning and is simply left with the intention and emotion. At the end of "They Tell Me You Are Gone" Girmay writes,
"...& we wake up wearing each other's clothes:
spider wearing my mouth like a room,..."
and all the meaning is tied up simply in what comes before and after, not in the actual sentence, despite it's jarring and beautiful construction and strange, if not actually imaginable, imagery. I doubt most poetry enthusiasts will be happy to hear this comparison, but it reminds me of Jeff Tweedy's poetry and the often construction of familiar words which just aren't supposed to go together. Girman's mastery at forcing a dawning comprehension on her reader is, however, more skilled.
Other poems contain phrases that feel like sudden breakthroughs. The clarity and simplicity stops the reader cold in an entirely different manner:
"All the songs you know are from a different country.
The fruits of your father's poems
do not grow here." - from "Portrait of the Woman as a Skein"
And these gems are worth any previous or prior struggles to decipher or translate Girmay's language.
The very first poem, and the book's title, was so moving that I read it and immediately put the book aside for the next two weeks:
The last stanza:
"I see a plant in the window of the house
my brother shares with his love, their shoes. & there
he is asleep in bed
with this same woman whose long skin
covers all of her bones, in a city called Oakland,
& their dreams hang above them
a little like a chandelier, & their teeth
flash in the night, oh, body.
Oh, body, be held now by whom you love.
Whole years will be spent, underneath these impossible stars,
when dirt's the only animal who will sleep with you
& touch you with
its mouth."
Forgive my overly academic exclamation here but, holy shit. "...whose long skin covers all of her bones." That alone - wow.
I wouldn't recommend this for those simply dipping toes into poetry, per se, but I don't consider myself to have a huge breadth of poetry or interpretative skill and I still enjoyed this quite a bit. Give it a shot.