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A review by stefhyena
Plot by Claudia Rankine
emotional
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
Another case in point for why I have learned not to give a star rating to poetry (I learned this late, the ones I rated were ones I read before I realised this).
I did not even remotely understand this book at first, I had to warm into it slowly and I am still not sure if that is because it got better as it went or because I acclimatised to it. By the end it was glowing for me. I was stopping to read poems slowly, aloud (I don't know what my son thought about that when I got up at 5am and read poems aloud to myself). I was rereading passages, pages or whole poems. So beautiful...but also at times difficult and I did not always get into them.
What is better? A poem that strikes a chord and makes a deep truth obvious so that you go "yes! yes! me too!" or a poem that confuses you, then draws you in, has wordplays and hints at truths you can't even grasp yet but start to want to? This book was more the latter- but it did also have physical words and experiences, especially toward the end and I love that in a poem as well!
I did not even remotely understand this book at first, I had to warm into it slowly and I am still not sure if that is because it got better as it went or because I acclimatised to it. By the end it was glowing for me. I was stopping to read poems slowly, aloud (I don't know what my son thought about that when I got up at 5am and read poems aloud to myself). I was rereading passages, pages or whole poems. So beautiful...but also at times difficult and I did not always get into them.
What is better? A poem that strikes a chord and makes a deep truth obvious so that you go "yes! yes! me too!" or a poem that confuses you, then draws you in, has wordplays and hints at truths you can't even grasp yet but start to want to? This book was more the latter- but it did also have physical words and experiences, especially toward the end and I love that in a poem as well!