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70 reviews
Glitter Road by January Gill O'Neil
not often the point of book reviews but the physical presentation of this poetry collection is STUNNING. the cover is gorgeous like i literally can't stop looking at the gold foil of the titular glitter road running down the center. the way that each section is split by a flower is so lovely as well. i'm lucky enough that the copy i ordered from thriftbooks came signed, also in gold. it's touches like this that make me really not care about the whole "judge a book by its cover" phrase.
no but seriously, just brilliant poems all around. i'm particularly attached to "begin again" (any poem that mentions a joy harjo poem is perfect in my eyes!) but there are many pieces in this that have imagery i'll be thinking about for the rest of the month. i'm definitely gonna check out january's older stuff!
5.0
No recipes to inherit, no sacred cows to burn on the stove's
bright eye.
not often the point of book reviews but the physical presentation of this poetry collection is STUNNING. the cover is gorgeous like i literally can't stop looking at the gold foil of the titular glitter road running down the center. the way that each section is split by a flower is so lovely as well. i'm lucky enough that the copy i ordered from thriftbooks came signed, also in gold. it's touches like this that make me really not care about the whole "judge a book by its cover" phrase.
no but seriously, just brilliant poems all around. i'm particularly attached to "begin again" (any poem that mentions a joy harjo poem is perfect in my eyes!) but there are many pieces in this that have imagery i'll be thinking about for the rest of the month. i'm definitely gonna check out january's older stuff!
All Heathens by Marianne Chan
marianne chan you have done it again. or is it the other way around since this came before leaving biddle city? seriously, though, there are so many poems in this that i love. hard to choose a favorite, but if i could narrow down the pool, i would choose "when the man at the party said he wanted to own a filipino" (i mean, that title alone!), "jet lag", and "lunch is ready" as standouts. she knows exactly how to capture the fil am experience and these make me feel like she took scenes straight out of my life. chan is just a master at enjambment, but she is also incredible at drawing connections between her poems and ordering them appropriately within the collection. the entire first section flows so smoothly that i don't notice how fast it's gone by until i'm on the second section.
emotional
informative
reflective
5.0
I realize now that this story was never about us
being owned, because we will always own ourselves. This story
is about the way the world believes that it owns us, holding
its album of pictures in its wishful hands.
marianne chan you have done it again. or is it the other way around since this came before leaving biddle city? seriously, though, there are so many poems in this that i love. hard to choose a favorite, but if i could narrow down the pool, i would choose "when the man at the party said he wanted to own a filipino" (i mean, that title alone!), "jet lag", and "lunch is ready" as standouts. she knows exactly how to capture the fil am experience and these make me feel like she took scenes straight out of my life. chan is just a master at enjambment, but she is also incredible at drawing connections between her poems and ordering them appropriately within the collection. the entire first section flows so smoothly that i don't notice how fast it's gone by until i'm on the second section.
Vapor by Sara Eliza Johnson
a lot of these poems felt as though they were saying the same thing to me, unfortunately, in the way that repetition did not seem to have an intent behind it. i loved the images! they were very evocative! they were simply not for me after a while.
dark
informative
mysterious
fast-paced
3.0
From this you learn we're never safe
but maybe it means we're never alone.
a lot of these poems felt as though they were saying the same thing to me, unfortunately, in the way that repetition did not seem to have an intent behind it. i loved the images! they were very evocative! they were simply not for me after a while.
Leaving Biddle City by Marianne Chan
a beyond brilliant collection of poetry. every time i read poems from a filipino author, it fills me with so much hope for my own.
reflective
5.0
I want to crack open the sky into a frying pan and eat it with bacon for lunch.
a beyond brilliant collection of poetry. every time i read poems from a filipino author, it fills me with so much hope for my own.
Yard Show by Janice N. Harrington
i am so in awe of what harrington is doing here, very literally organizing the collection as if it were her own yard show, occupying a place on the page. this is especially the case in the titular poems, which i could gush about for hours, particularly "yard show i" and its variety of forms giving you as visual a component to work with as the description itself. i really fell in love with how she works nature into her poetry as well. in case you couldn't tell, "burn" captured my heart immediately, as did many of the other poems containing an abundance of growth, whether with plants or flowers or creatures, even. the recurring image of the garter snake was so satisfying to follow.
but what really cements this as a high star read for me is how effortlessly harrington is able to move through the spaces that she touches on in her work. as you go through the sections, she stays grounded in these things that make "yard show" sing, imagery that comes with such a solid grasp on language it makes me feel significantly less embarrassed about how much rhyme i have been using in my own poetry lately. and yet she also angles to meet adversity head-on. going through this evolution from the green sea of grasses to the blunt recognition of the midwest where they waver is gripping. she calls it home, but she also knows it to be hostile, a place that would do well to remember that black history is embedded in its soil. to be able to navigate the topics that she does with such deftness but still retain her voice is an incredible feat. i cannot wait to read her other collections.
informative
reflective
4.5
Here between the stands of bluestem, I am interruption.
i am so in awe of what harrington is doing here, very literally organizing the collection as if it were her own yard show, occupying a place on the page. this is especially the case in the titular poems, which i could gush about for hours, particularly "yard show i" and its variety of forms giving you as visual a component to work with as the description itself. i really fell in love with how she works nature into her poetry as well. in case you couldn't tell, "burn" captured my heart immediately, as did many of the other poems containing an abundance of growth, whether with plants or flowers or creatures, even. the recurring image of the garter snake was so satisfying to follow.
but what really cements this as a high star read for me is how effortlessly harrington is able to move through the spaces that she touches on in her work. as you go through the sections, she stays grounded in these things that make "yard show" sing, imagery that comes with such a solid grasp on language it makes me feel significantly less embarrassed about how much rhyme i have been using in my own poetry lately. and yet she also angles to meet adversity head-on. going through this evolution from the green sea of grasses to the blunt recognition of the midwest where they waver is gripping. she calls it home, but she also knows it to be hostile, a place that would do well to remember that black history is embedded in its soil. to be able to navigate the topics that she does with such deftness but still retain her voice is an incredible feat. i cannot wait to read her other collections.
Ugly Music by Diannely Antigua
3.5
If I could hold that decade of church in my palm,
I'd grip it like a teacup, or pie cutter from Sunday dinner,
the Lord's work of licking frosting from a finger.
Litany for the City by Ryan Teitman
a perfect collection of poetry to read after going to a big city for the weekend. i really loved the intersections that these pieces were working at, not only with architecture and community in terms of the city as place but also with religion and language in terms of the litany as register. of course, there's more to them than that. the marriage of the urbane and the rural in poems like "ode to a hawk with wings burning" was sublime. the representation of philadelphia throughout all cities apart from philadelphia itself in the metropolitan suite was gorgeous. out of them all, "ephesians" was the poem that called to me the most. i liked it because of its taste, and i don't mean that only in terms of flavor. i mean it in the sense that it confronts the act of taste, makes your mouth surrender to what shouldn't be there, and has you swallowing it whole. the effect is wildly satisfying. i'm gonna be thinking about this one for a while.
reflective
4.5
She tells me she loves bridges—how the stitches of them hold the city together; every river is a seam on a dress, but they’re always ready to burst.
a perfect collection of poetry to read after going to a big city for the weekend. i really loved the intersections that these pieces were working at, not only with architecture and community in terms of the city as place but also with religion and language in terms of the litany as register. of course, there's more to them than that. the marriage of the urbane and the rural in poems like "ode to a hawk with wings burning" was sublime. the representation of philadelphia throughout all cities apart from philadelphia itself in the metropolitan suite was gorgeous. out of them all, "ephesians" was the poem that called to me the most. i liked it because of its taste, and i don't mean that only in terms of flavor. i mean it in the sense that it confronts the act of taste, makes your mouth surrender to what shouldn't be there, and has you swallowing it whole. the effect is wildly satisfying. i'm gonna be thinking about this one for a while.
Sounds Like Me: My Life (So Far) in Song by Sara Bareilles
i have been listening to sara bareilles for as long as i can remember. one of my earliest and most formative memories is seeing her face displayed on the screen of every possible television set at the entrance of the sam's club in my hometown, the music video for king of anything playing on all of them. since then, i have been carrying her music with me, letting her soundtrack some of my most hectic years, so i am forever grateful to have her songs in the background of my life.
that makes sense the more that i think about it, considering the whirlwind of events that she details in this book. her music thrives and connects the best in chaos. no wonder her most recent record is named that. even though this is about a world i am not entirely familiar with, it is insightful as hell. this is a side of sara that you can encounter easily in her discography, but you will never really know it until you have seen it put down on the page. she speaks openly about her experiences in the music industry and earnestly about her slow but steady progress into feeling accomplished, fulfilled, and loved. it is exactly the kind of story that speaks outside the bounds of anything standard.
the day that what's inside was released, i instantly fell in love with every song, their sweet simplicity a perfect accompaniment for the musical that waitress would soon be. it is interesting to revisit it all these years later, reading her thoughts before she would ever go on to play the woman she was writing for. to echo her, full circle indeed.
i highly recommend listening to the audiobook while reading a physical copy! she sings every song that each chapter is named after, so hearing it in combination with reading her handwritten lyrics makes the read feel much more personal. i have to say, though, the song i loved hearing her sing most isn't the title of any of the essays. also, the photos of her! everything about this memoir is so lived in, something absent from others i have read. i can't wait to see what she does now. (i wish it was more girls5eva!)
funny
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
So... if you happen to catch the next time someone gets that cheeky look on their face and says to me, "So is it true that you wrote Love Song for your record label when they told you to write them a love song?"
You will mostly likely see me smile and answer yes.
But you'll know better.
i have been listening to sara bareilles for as long as i can remember. one of my earliest and most formative memories is seeing her face displayed on the screen of every possible television set at the entrance of the sam's club in my hometown, the music video for king of anything playing on all of them. since then, i have been carrying her music with me, letting her soundtrack some of my most hectic years, so i am forever grateful to have her songs in the background of my life.
that makes sense the more that i think about it, considering the whirlwind of events that she details in this book. her music thrives and connects the best in chaos. no wonder her most recent record is named that. even though this is about a world i am not entirely familiar with, it is insightful as hell. this is a side of sara that you can encounter easily in her discography, but you will never really know it until you have seen it put down on the page. she speaks openly about her experiences in the music industry and earnestly about her slow but steady progress into feeling accomplished, fulfilled, and loved. it is exactly the kind of story that speaks outside the bounds of anything standard.
the day that what's inside was released, i instantly fell in love with every song, their sweet simplicity a perfect accompaniment for the musical that waitress would soon be. it is interesting to revisit it all these years later, reading her thoughts before she would ever go on to play the woman she was writing for. to echo her, full circle indeed.
i highly recommend listening to the audiobook while reading a physical copy! she sings every song that each chapter is named after, so hearing it in combination with reading her handwritten lyrics makes the read feel much more personal. i have to say, though, the song i loved hearing her sing most isn't the title of any of the essays. also, the photos of her! everything about this memoir is so lived in, something absent from others i have read. i can't wait to see what she does now. (i wish it was more girls5eva!)
Content Warnings
Minor: Body shaming, Bullying, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Suicidal thoughts
The Orange and other poems by Wendy Cope
i got this from my friend keegan as a christmas present and it is one of the best gifts i have ever received. to be given a collection of poetry in general is the sweetest gesture, so to specifically have something so wholesome in my possession now makes me feel positive about the future. of course i had to start off the year right with this. at the heart of every poem is love. the best thing you can do is remind yourself of that over and over and over again.
3.5
What's the use of poetry?
You ask. Well, here's a start:
It's anecdotal evidence
About the human heart.
i got this from my friend keegan as a christmas present and it is one of the best gifts i have ever received. to be given a collection of poetry in general is the sweetest gesture, so to specifically have something so wholesome in my possession now makes me feel positive about the future. of course i had to start off the year right with this. at the heart of every poem is love. the best thing you can do is remind yourself of that over and over and over again.