A review by giantjackalopes
Still Falling: Poems by Jennifer Grotz

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

There are two things I know for certain about life: There will be grief and there will be ways in which the natural world conquers it. I was so excited to read this collection. It reminds me a lot of Louise Glück meets Keetji Kuipers. Which is to say, it was beautiful and haunting. Reading it felt sort of like how you feel when you’re driving through a dip in the road and you lose your stomach for a second. It’s both exhilarating and causing you to think critically of the makeup of your being. The pacing and sonic quality is calculated which, I think, helps to make the poems land as they do. I found myself underlining so many lines and stopping just so I could put the book down and say damn. Grotz writes about the way grief and flora (and fauna) converge into the human experience. I’ve never read a poetry collection that matches my understanding of grief before this book. I am forever changed after having read it. I would recommend this collection to every stranger I ever meet.