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A review by lukenotjohn
Kingdom Animalia by Aracelis Girmay
5.0
This is a truly phenomenal collection. It reads like witchcraft: haunting, evocative, and elegiac while still reaching some soaring, triumphant heights.
Modern poetry is a genre I am still growing accustomed to, which may be the reason why a handful of these didn't work for me and kept it from being a 5-star (edit: after almost a year, I've thought of this collection so often that I've realized it is a 5-star after all), but the majority were spellbinding with a handful of true standouts listed below. Death, when it is not the explicit focus, lingers and looms at the edges of each poem. At times this takes the form of a sort of coy, smirking morbidity, but more often (and more enchantingly) it manifests as the ache of grief Girmay invites us into with startling vulnerability.
"Abuelo, Mi Muerto," Ode to the Little 'r'," "Self-Portrait as the Snail," "Portrait of a Woman as a Skein," and especially "To the Husband," and "This Morning the Small Bird Brought a Message from the Other Side" were my favorites.
Modern poetry is a genre I am still growing accustomed to, which may be the reason why a handful of these didn't work for me and kept it from being a 5-star (edit: after almost a year, I've thought of this collection so often that I've realized it is a 5-star after all), but the majority were spellbinding with a handful of true standouts listed below. Death, when it is not the explicit focus, lingers and looms at the edges of each poem. At times this takes the form of a sort of coy, smirking morbidity, but more often (and more enchantingly) it manifests as the ache of grief Girmay invites us into with startling vulnerability.
"Abuelo, Mi Muerto," Ode to the Little 'r'," "Self-Portrait as the Snail," "Portrait of a Woman as a Skein," and especially "To the Husband," and "This Morning the Small Bird Brought a Message from the Other Side" were my favorites.