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earlydecember's reviews
23 reviews
The Summer of Dead Birds by Ali Liebegott
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Cancer, Death of parent, and Grief
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts
Bread and Circus by Airea Dee Matthews, Airea Dee Matthews
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
Bread and Circus is a challenging and melancholic collection of poems that explores addiction, poverty, anti-black racism, and trauma through the lens of Guy Debord's The Society of Spectacle and in a critique of Adam Smith's economic theories.
I was captivated by how Matthews plays with poetic form and formatting. The style, tone, and structure are diverse: from concrete and blackout poems to lyric poems influenced by biblical verses and the dialogue in Greek dramas. It is impossible to anticipate what will be on the next page. The constantly changing style heightens the heavy subject matters by removing any potential sense of comfort that sometimes comes with a more consistent structure. Matthews is so precise with her artistic intentions; every detail enhances the next.
Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the digital ARC.
I was captivated by how Matthews plays with poetic form and formatting. The style, tone, and structure are diverse: from concrete and blackout poems to lyric poems influenced by biblical verses and the dialogue in Greek dramas. It is impossible to anticipate what will be on the next page. The constantly changing style heightens the heavy subject matters by removing any potential sense of comfort that sometimes comes with a more consistent structure. Matthews is so precise with her artistic intentions; every detail enhances the next.
Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the digital ARC.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, and Racism
Moderate: Death of parent
Minor: Rape
Ponyboy by Eliot Duncan
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Ponyboy delves into the eponymous character's struggles with addiction as he embraces his trans-masculine identity and navigates messy queer relationships. The book has an experimental, hybrid form that includes emails, letters, and poems written to writers, philosophers, trans people, and others.
The prose style can be disorienting since Ponyboy's narrative voice prioritizes emotion and theory over concrete description. Especially in the first half of the narrative when Ponyboy is in the thick of his addiction and not in a clear state of mind. In the second half, Ponyboy goes to rehab but experiences a relapse. Personally, what sold me is the realistic portrayal of recovery and its setbacks, healing and its discomfort.
As a debut novel, Ponyboy shows great promise, and I am eager to see Duncan's future works. If you're a fan of queer, character-driven stories, I think you'll enjoy Ponyboy too.
Thank you to NetGalley and W.W Norton for the digital ARC.
Thank you to NetGalley and W.W Norton for the digital ARC.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Rape, Transphobia, and Addiction
Moderate: Eating disorder
I Do Everything I'm Told by Megan Fernandes
Thank you to Netgalley and Tin House for the ARC copy.
challenging
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I Do Everything I'm Told is what I thought Sex and the City was like until I actually watched the show. Funny, worldly, mature, speculative, and the type of cool only women in their thirties know how to achieve.
Fernandes' poetic voice is distinct, witty, and casual. The poems explore love, intimacy, loss, transience, (and what I find the most intriguing) the importance of place. Both literally and figuratively. The speaker travels often, and their lovers and friends become intertwined with or bounded by their respective cities. But even when the speaker seems lost, it feels like there is always a community to return to.
This collection is separated into four sections with varying themes connected by a sense of urgency and longing. Section two is my favorite, with one and three coming in at a tie. Two is the most experimental in terms of poetic form. I loved the imperfect sonnets and their deconstructed counterparts. These poems perfectly encapsulate heartbreak and uncertainty. Section one is reflective; three is introspective. And four moves outward to include world events. (I find most pandemic poems cringy, but these are good.)
I Do Everything I'm Told is my favorite poetry collection I read so far this year — new or old. So here is a moment from one of my favorite poems titled "Masculinity:"
Fernandes' poetic voice is distinct, witty, and casual. The poems explore love, intimacy, loss, transience, (and what I find the most intriguing) the importance of place. Both literally and figuratively. The speaker travels often, and their lovers and friends become intertwined with or bounded by their respective cities. But even when the speaker seems lost, it feels like there is always a community to return to.
This collection is separated into four sections with varying themes connected by a sense of urgency and longing. Section two is my favorite, with one and three coming in at a tie. Two is the most experimental in terms of poetic form. I loved the imperfect sonnets and their deconstructed counterparts. These poems perfectly encapsulate heartbreak and uncertainty. Section one is reflective; three is introspective. And four moves outward to include world events. (I find most pandemic poems cringy, but these are good.)
I Do Everything I'm Told is my favorite poetry collection I read so far this year — new or old. So here is a moment from one of my favorite poems titled "Masculinity:"
But I said none of this. Because when I heard no one is coming to save me,
I held you close like a storied woman. Like all the storybook women before me
who know what destroys and remakes, and what is destroyed in the remaking.
Thank you to Netgalley and Tin House for the ARC copy.
Content Warnings
Minor: Domestic abuse and Drug use
Winter Recipes from the Collective: Poems by Louise Glück
This is a stunning addition to Glück's body of work and continues themes from other collections, but it is not my most-loved book by her. That, of course, does not make it any less good. To end, here is a moment from one of my favorites, An Endless Story:
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Winter Recipes is a quiet, chapbook-length collection of prosaic yet lyrical poems about loss and aging with an emphasis on family and friendship. It would be easy to fall into a pit of nostalgia, but Glück remains reflective without being saccharine or sentimental. Similarly to her 2006 collection, Averno, where Roman and Greek mythology frames her thoughts on grief and mother/daughter relationships, Winter Recipes references Chinese philosophy and parables to describe the certitude of death and senescent.
This is a stunning addition to Glück's body of work and continues themes from other collections, but it is not my most-loved book by her. That, of course, does not make it any less good. To end, here is a moment from one of my favorites, An Endless Story:
…There was a bird, she said.
Someone is supposed to kiss it.
[…] Once it is kissed
it becomes a human being. So it cannot fly;
it can only sit and stand and lie down.
[…] That was a bad trade, she said,
the wings for the kiss.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Grief