A review by lukenotjohn
Teeth by Aracelis Girmay

4.5

I read Kingdom Animalia about a year ago and had really high hopes for this collection, its predecessor. Although it wasn't as strong or spellbinding as that book (and it'd be a bit shocking if it was, to be honest), I still found these to be really stunning as well. A key difference, to me, was that Kingdom Animalia seemed to all be speaking from the same place and all of the poems were echoing off of each other, whereas this felt a lot more disjointed. In some ways, this actually appeared intentional, a reflection of Girmay's familial geographic diversity (of course best illustrated in the stunning closing poem) and in that vein it works well. At other points, however, it felt like too much a shift to go from exploring war crimes to childhood memories; that isn't to say the transition shouldn't be made, but that it felt a bit jerky for me. With that said, she's certainly adept at both ends of the spectrum. Her more politicized, wide-angle poems express a seething rage and heartbreak of course best embodied by "Arroz Poetica" while her smaller-scale, personal pieces like "Santa Ana of Grocery Carts" carry a warmth and intimacy and vulnerability that's really engaging. Girmay has an expert intuition for rhythm, syntax, and repetition, the latter of which is probably most impressive of all considering its prevalence here and how stale or annoying that would be in the hands of most poets. 

"Arroz Poetica" is the undeniable stand-out; I had to set the book down and walk around a bit after finishing it. "Then Sing," "Here," "Scent: Love Poem for the Pilón," and "Epistolary Dream Poem after Finding a Schoolbook Map" were my other top favorites with quite a few more not far behind them.