Reviews

Ceremonies for the Dead by Giles Benaway, Daniel Heath Justice

emmkayt's review

4.0

This was Gwen Benaway’s first book of poetry and my first encounter with her work. Powerfully written, particularly the second chunk, “Feasting the Murmuring Bones,” it’s poems exploring the effects of a fractured and abusive family of origin. “the violence you made your life around/was more than your husband’s fists/but started in your mother’s womb/dark and bloody from the beginning.// the original hurt blossomed deeper/than bruises on your children’s skin,/ seeped into their bones like cloudy ink/ and coated the membranes of their eyes,/ blinding all your descendants equally.”