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4.28 AVERAGE
4.28 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
This was my first introduction to Kaveh Akbar's writing, and while this poetry collection wasn't a 5 star read for me, I still immensely enjoyed the writing style and will definitely be seeking out his other writing in the future.
Ripe with emotionally vulnerability, Akbar's poetry is an honest reckoning with the author's struggle with alcoholism. Blending together themes of faith, family, and queer love, the poems evoke feelings of achingly deep sorrow and yearning; yearning for a better self, sorrow for his lost self, along with so many layers of guilt. There were times when I felt like the pieces were a little too meandering and distracted, but overall this was a deeply searing collection of poems, and there are lines within this book that will continue to live in my mind long after I have put this book down.
My favorite poems were: "Do You Speak Persian?", "Heritage", "Kingdom for a Murmur of Fanfare", "Tassiopeia", and "Fugu".
And my favorite lines were:
"I'm becoming more a vessel of memories than a person it's a myth that love lives in the heart it lives in the throat we push it out when we speak
when we gasp we take a little for ourselves"
"sometimes faith feels too far away to be of any use a distant moon built from the prophets' holy bones other times it's so near
I can hold it between my teeth"
"nobody has turned out to be as powerful as I believed my father to be"
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
“Is there a vocabulary for this—one to make dailiness amplify and not diminish wonder?”
“every day someone finds what they need in someone else you tear into a body and come out with a fistful of the exact feathers you were looking for wondering why anyone would want to swallow so many perfect feathers”
“I’ve given this coldness many names thinking if it had a name it would have a solution thinking if I called a wolf a wolf I might dull its fangs I carried the coldness like a diamond for years holding it close near as blood until one day I woke and it was fully inside me both of us ruined and unrecognizable two coins on a train track the train crushed into one”
“so much of being alive is breaking”
“The famous poet said write by the light of your wounds.”
“A man creates the most joy in the abstract, when you can remove his actual body, its shear carapace and bleeding gums. Cut it away, the entire boring envelope, and marvel at what remains: a pulsing vacuum bag stuffed with rubies and bone spurs, a pink lighthouse only barely heavier than its light.”
“he’d say if you’re not happy in your own yard you won’t be happy anywhere I’ve never had a yard but I’ve had apartments where water pipes burst above my head“
“Minute to minute I’m fine— right lung, left lung, blink—but the late hours get so long.”
“every day someone finds what they need in someone else you tear into a body and come out with a fistful of the exact feathers you were looking for wondering why anyone would want to swallow so many perfect feathers”
“I’ve given this coldness many names thinking if it had a name it would have a solution thinking if I called a wolf a wolf I might dull its fangs I carried the coldness like a diamond for years holding it close near as blood until one day I woke and it was fully inside me both of us ruined and unrecognizable two coins on a train track the train crushed into one”
“so much of being alive is breaking”
“The famous poet said write by the light of your wounds.”
“A man creates the most joy in the abstract, when you can remove his actual body, its shear carapace and bleeding gums. Cut it away, the entire boring envelope, and marvel at what remains: a pulsing vacuum bag stuffed with rubies and bone spurs, a pink lighthouse only barely heavier than its light.”
“he’d say if you’re not happy in your own yard you won’t be happy anywhere I’ve never had a yard but I’ve had apartments where water pipes burst above my head“
“Minute to minute I’m fine— right lung, left lung, blink—but the late hours get so long.”
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
Reading Akbar as a younger poet after reading his blistering debut was the right (accidental) choice. The raw talent is there, but the poems drag across rather than stab the skin. I felt the itch and injury, but the wounds could be tended with some delicacy. Still, a talent was being crafted and in truth, I’d love to see where his poems are now.
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
medium-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
I think I may come back to this and try again. Too many people I know and respect, at least as far as poetry goes, tell me this is great stuff. I missed it. And I have a sense that if I'd read this at a different time my reaction would have been more positive. As opposed to reading it and deciding,
"No, I just don't care."
So I'm going to do something I rarely do; give an author a second chance. We'll come back to this.
"No, I just don't care."
So I'm going to do something I rarely do; give an author a second chance. We'll come back to this.
challenging
reflective
medium-paced