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4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
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
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
emotional
slow-paced
There's a frenetic longing to this collection that is evident throughout. While I am not a self-described poetry reader, Sinclair's talent with words is obvious. It was difficult for me to understand many of the poems, but I nonetheless enjoyed reading the words.
challenging
emotional
slow-paced
dark
emotional
"The word "cannibal," the English variant of the Spanish word canibal, comes from the word caribal, a reference to the native Carib people in the West Indies, who Columbus thought ate human flesh and from whom the word "Caribbean" originated. By virtue of being Caribbean, all "West Indian" people are already, in a purely linguistic sense, born savage".
This poetry collection begins with this and let me tell you I was gagged listening to it, what a beginning!
This is the first time I have read an entire poetry collection through audiobook - and on the one hand, poetry is meant to be spoken, so I loved it, but on the other hand, I feel like I need to see the words of the poem to have it sink in properly and to appreciate it deeply.
I just read an article from the author about her book, how it came about, and her relationship with The Tempest, and it all made so much sense, poetry is always something that gains so much when unpacked (especially because her writing is quite lyrical).
Overall I liked this, and am continuing with not rating poetry collections because I often don't know how to!
"But how many ways can we reinvent violence?"
This poetry collection begins with this and let me tell you I was gagged listening to it, what a beginning!
This is the first time I have read an entire poetry collection through audiobook - and on the one hand, poetry is meant to be spoken, so I loved it, but on the other hand, I feel like I need to see the words of the poem to have it sink in properly and to appreciate it deeply.
I just read an article from the author about her book, how it came about, and her relationship with The Tempest, and it all made so much sense, poetry is always something that gains so much when unpacked (especially because her writing is quite lyrical).
Overall I liked this, and am continuing with not rating poetry collections because I often don't know how to!
"But how many ways can we reinvent violence?"
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Colonisation
Moderate: Domestic abuse
slow-paced
So many different vignettes and aspects of intersectionality. I feel like I know the poet intimately. I need to reread the Tempest to fully understand this text
In this wet season my gone mother
climbs back again
and everything here smells gutted-
bloodtide, sea grapes in thick bloom,
[…]
How night comes raw, open-wounded,
her gills wafting in the iron's heat, sea's marrow
unrelenting, my heart one coiled mass
I absolutely loved the first half of this collection. The fishing and ocean imagery are perfect — especially when rendered so disgustingly, dripping with salt and blood and viscera.
The second section becomes more political (”Where a bald insurrection of tongues. / Then squashed rebellion, scrutiny. Indoctrination. / To live here we know precisely how to be hunted.”) and angry. I still like it a lot, just not as much as the heights of the first.
Some favourites:
- Pocomania
- Fisherman’s Daughter
- Hands
- Mermaid
- Notes on the State of Virginia II
- How to be an interesting woman: a polite guide for the poetess
- Spectre
- Chimera
medium-paced
I thought some of the writing in this was really beautiful, but it often bogged down the poems.
Less definitely would have been more for me here.
Less definitely would have been more for me here.