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A review by egilmore
To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness by Robin Coste Lewis
5.0
Erudite but brilliant. Cosmic. The center poem is especially stunning… it took me until then to “get it”.
Through pairing lines of verse with blank spaces and photographs of those known and unknown, Robin Coste Lewis balances intimacy and grandiosity. The result is both novel and profoundly moving. She explores evolution and migration at multiple frequencies — as a species, as a cultural community, as a family, as an individual. Floods, exploration, pioneers, ice floes, red trails, dark matter, stars, births… the poems here are about ruptures, both loud and quiet, from prehistory to post. This is a book that spins galaxies on the axes of Black history and Black futurism.
Through pairing lines of verse with blank spaces and photographs of those known and unknown, Robin Coste Lewis balances intimacy and grandiosity. The result is both novel and profoundly moving. She explores evolution and migration at multiple frequencies — as a species, as a cultural community, as a family, as an individual. Floods, exploration, pioneers, ice floes, red trails, dark matter, stars, births… the poems here are about ruptures, both loud and quiet, from prehistory to post. This is a book that spins galaxies on the axes of Black history and Black futurism.