Review by tyelperinquar - Whiskey Words & a Shovel I

tyelperinquar 's review for:

1.5

emotional reflective sad fast-paced

One of the poems in this this collection is titled “a tweet.”, which is exactly what each entry in this book should have been— a tweet. Over 282 pages, Sin rehashes the same ideas and themes time and time again, only barely able to create different poems. In one instance, there were three poems in a row about not trusting someone who says “I miss you”— just one poem on that topic would have been more than sufficient.

Additionally, at the beginning of this book, I had assumed Sin was a woman. The book is heavily focused on women’s pain, emotions, brokenness, and healing— I figured Sin must be a woman writing about her own experiences. Cheesy poems, but if that was how she felt empowered, so be it. Upon finding Sin was not, in fact, a woman, the thoughts and intentions behind the words I read seemed to shift. Sin seems to have an obsession with the “broken woman”, her strength, and her deserving of love. He constantly feels the need to remind her that she deserves more, at the same time reminding her that while other men have hurt her and have failed to understand her, he is a real man and will treat her right. It feels like a constant assertion of the idea that a woman needs a man to tell her what her worth is, and a constant stroking of his own ego. He’s not like other men. He’s better. He knows how to treat you right. Isn’t he so intelligent, emotional, deep, and sensitive?

In one poem, he even directly addresses his partner as “woman”. Endearing, maybe, if another woman had said it, but knowing it was written by a man leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.

I can count the number of decent poems in this book on one hand. For 282 pages… that’s really unacceptable.
Some of these poems are absolutely egregious. While riding home from the library, I accidentally flipped to “crown me 722.” and realized— “Oh. This book is going to be bad.” And while some of them are absolutely horrendous, most of the poems are simply mediocre, trite, cliches not worth remembering. I only finished this book because it was easy to read and because I thought it would be amusing. Which it was! But if I hadn’t already brought it home from the library by the time I realized what this book was, I wouldn’t have given it my time.

At the very least, my friends and I had some good laughs about the poems in this book. If you’d like to hate-read a book of bad poetry, this is the book for you. But if you’re looking for a poetry book that actually has something meaningful to say about the healing process after a bad relationship, you should place your time elsewhere.

Some favorite funny quotes & poems:

if love trumps all, then why the hell
is he our potus

my heart rate increasing
as told by my fitbit

I was eager to double-tap
you in real life

challenge.
hashtag
stop wasting
your time
on him

crown me 722.
she crowned the tip of my head
with the lips between her thighs
my Queen made me King

Content Warnings