Scan barcode
A review by yeahdeadslow
Girl Coming in for a Landing by April Halprin Wayland
5.0
This book caught my eye when I was in the poetry section at the library. I was a bit leery since it had a YA sticker plastered on its spine, but I opened the book and read the first poem:
Writing Poetry
In the middle of the night
I turn on my light
then slowly peel
off layers of me
with the press of each key.
I knew I had to read this book.
I still wasn't sure I'd like it, though. They were poems written from the viewpoint of a fourteen (or maybe thirteen?) year old girl. (Whose name I don't know, come to think of it. So pardon me as I refer to her in pronouns.) Some of her adolescent musings I could no longer identify with (and I definitely couldn't identify with her kissing boys at such a young age), but this was actually a wonderful book! It could be read as a novel, it could be read as a collection of poetry. The story wasn't laid out clearly in so many words. Often it had to be read in the spaces between poems. (Aren't I making a lot of sense?)
My favourite poems were definitely the ones about her and her writing.
I Have To Write
I have to write.
A splinter pushed up through my skin
and I can't sleep
until this sliver of words
works its way out.
But there were other beautiful moments as well. The ones that stand out in my memory at the moment are the poems about her Great Aunt Ida, and this line in a poem to her sister:
Sister-sister-sister take this in:
there's nothing better than knowing
knowing inside me and outside in the high clouds, too,
that you are in this strange-wonderful-awful-justsilly place
this world with me.
Nothing better.
(But I am very sentimental about sisters lately, as mine is getting married and moving away this year.)
Writing Poetry
In the middle of the night
I turn on my light
then slowly peel
off layers of me
with the press of each key.
I knew I had to read this book.
I still wasn't sure I'd like it, though. They were poems written from the viewpoint of a fourteen (or maybe thirteen?) year old girl. (Whose name I don't know, come to think of it. So pardon me as I refer to her in pronouns.) Some of her adolescent musings I could no longer identify with (and I definitely couldn't identify with her kissing boys at such a young age), but this was actually a wonderful book! It could be read as a novel, it could be read as a collection of poetry. The story wasn't laid out clearly in so many words. Often it had to be read in the spaces between poems. (Aren't I making a lot of sense?)
My favourite poems were definitely the ones about her and her writing.
I Have To Write
I have to write.
A splinter pushed up through my skin
and I can't sleep
until this sliver of words
works its way out.
But there were other beautiful moments as well. The ones that stand out in my memory at the moment are the poems about her Great Aunt Ida, and this line in a poem to her sister:
Sister-sister-sister take this in:
there's nothing better than knowing
knowing inside me and outside in the high clouds, too,
that you are in this strange-wonderful-awful-justsilly place
this world with me.
Nothing better.
(But I am very sentimental about sisters lately, as mine is getting married and moving away this year.)