Reviews - Calling a Wolf a Wolf

488 reviews for:

Calling a Wolf a Wolf

Kaveh Akbar

4.28 AVERAGE

swordsandwords's review against another edition

5.0

dark emotional sad

ellie_gard_1998's review against another edition

4.75

dark emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

"It all just means so intensely: bones / on the beach, calls from the bushes, / the scent of edible flowers / floating in from the horizon..."

Visceral, vulnerable poems from a very skilled writer with whom I continue to feel is a kindred spirit in my own humanistic melancholy. I love this collection--easily and immediately a favorite.

bryceemanuel's review against another edition

3.75

dark emotional reflective slow-paced

3.75 stars for me

i think akbar’s treatise on addiction, faith, and the self, is beautiful and not hard to see the beauty of. i had to go back and read a lot of the poems a couple of times which is a testament to akbars adeptness with the usage of language.

good pieces are: “Besides Little Goat, You Can’t Just Go Asking for Mercy”, “Learning to Pray”, “Portrait of the Alcoholic with Moth and River”, “Every Drunk Wants To Die Sober It’s How We Beat The Game” and “Do You Speak Persian”

i really enjoyed attempting to thread the meaning of the poems in relation to each other

and I will say I enjoyed the first 2/3 of the collection more than the last third, and I think it felt a little bit more disjointed toward the end, however I think there is a central message of wanting to be a better human and failing, but finding redemption.