freechasetoday's review
5.0
Highly recommended. Controlled, associative; a microscopic image and satellite photo in the same instant. Check out "Sympathy for Eve."
woolgatherer's review
challenging
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
A quiet, almost dreamlike collection of poems that reflect on an array of themes that are as broad as thinking about loss and longing, and as specific as Osman’s own identity and life experiences. I wasn’t quite sure what particular direction she wanted to take these poems, which sort of took away from the flow. However, there was a lot to think about in each poem, especially the last one, “Refusing Eurydice.”
Some favorites: “Catastrophic Breakdown,” “NSFW,” and “Refusing Eurydice”
Some favorites: “Catastrophic Breakdown,” “NSFW,” and “Refusing Eurydice”
Read for the Sealey Challenge.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: War, Death, and Police brutality
lauren_endnotes's review
Osman opens the collection with some stunner poems in "Half-Life" (immediately getting my attention as she quotes Stanislaw Lem's Solaris), and "You Return With the Water: Indian Ocean Tsunami, 2004".
Quiet intensity maintained through the poems, and the great use of photographs and cartoons to supplement her words.
Several pieces will stay with me, but I think "Practice with Yearning Theorem: Loci" is the standout. Grief processing and observation through Google Earth aerial photography:
I visit countries in trouble. If there's water, I go there first. I look for green. Last, I look for airports, other infrastructure. Mogadishu, Aleppo, Baghdad.
Quiet intensity maintained through the poems, and the great use of photographs and cartoons to supplement her words.
Several pieces will stay with me, but I think "Practice with Yearning Theorem: Loci" is the standout. Grief processing and observation through Google Earth aerial photography:
I visit countries in trouble. If there's water, I go there first. I look for green. Last, I look for airports, other infrastructure. Mogadishu, Aleppo, Baghdad.
103zk's review
4.0
this collection is so surreal and prescient. i want to keep a lot of lines with me forever but especially this one: "i kill yet another moth and consider leaving its body, marker for cousins eating uneven holes in the blooms of my favourite shawl. i call it favourite after ruin." like AH so sharp and dreamlike
tram_bui's review
4.0
Exiles of Eden by Ladan Osman is a loose take on the origin story of Adam, Eve, and their exile from the Garden of Eden, "exploring displacement and alienation from its mythological origins to the present."
The collection doesn’t make overt biblical references to the origin story. Instead, Osman does allude to feelings of exile, alienation, and the pressures of human consciousness. She covers the many shades of longing: a longing for family, a better lover than who you have, a better love than what you have, belonging, validation, and a sense of self.
My two favorite poems from this collection were “Half-Life” and “Refusing Eurydice,” which bookend the collection.
In “Half-Life,” Osman ponders what it means to lose yourself and be aware of the process as it happens. The poem starts with a brilliant reference to the movie Solaris and evokes the conversation of what we love and value and identify with in this world. Do we love the people around us or is it the idea of them and the potential of what they can provide to us that we love? Do we love the tangible or the simulated? These questions apply universally. What do we want from ourselves and our relationships? For someone to truly see us the way we are or of who we could be? Is it enough to want? As long as we believe in the idea of something, maybe it doesn’t matter how real or connected or tangible something is.
In “Refusing Eurydice,” Osman invites you “Go to the place between dreams, where all the light is yours.” “This is a congregation refusing Eurydice,” Osman writes. "We refuse the spirits that attempt oppression, / and we refuse the spirits that attempt possession. / [...] We are looking for a better myth. / We've been looking since Eve." This poem touches on our dissatisfaction with the myths told to us. It’s an oppressive network of burdensome expectations that has us avoiding life because we are looking for something to fill a void that we are told we have. There are no winners or triumphs in this system.
This collection is vividly presented to us with universal themes of exile and loneliness, but the prose shines when Osman tethers her lines to experiences of being a black woman in America, trying to explore the space between being an immigrant and a refugee, and what it means “to be ejected from paradise.”
Other standouts from this collection: “NSFW” (for its humor, intimacy, obtrusive thoughts of violence); "Think of Me as Your Mother" (written for young men being held in prison); “The sea fell on my house” (for exploring the source of her pain); and “Practice With Yearning Theorem: Tangents (for being comfortable with loss).
The collection doesn’t make overt biblical references to the origin story. Instead, Osman does allude to feelings of exile, alienation, and the pressures of human consciousness. She covers the many shades of longing: a longing for family, a better lover than who you have, a better love than what you have, belonging, validation, and a sense of self.
My two favorite poems from this collection were “Half-Life” and “Refusing Eurydice,” which bookend the collection.
In “Half-Life,” Osman ponders what it means to lose yourself and be aware of the process as it happens. The poem starts with a brilliant reference to the movie Solaris and evokes the conversation of what we love and value and identify with in this world. Do we love the people around us or is it the idea of them and the potential of what they can provide to us that we love? Do we love the tangible or the simulated? These questions apply universally. What do we want from ourselves and our relationships? For someone to truly see us the way we are or of who we could be? Is it enough to want? As long as we believe in the idea of something, maybe it doesn’t matter how real or connected or tangible something is.
In “Refusing Eurydice,” Osman invites you “Go to the place between dreams, where all the light is yours.” “This is a congregation refusing Eurydice,” Osman writes. "We refuse the spirits that attempt oppression, / and we refuse the spirits that attempt possession. / [...] We are looking for a better myth. / We've been looking since Eve." This poem touches on our dissatisfaction with the myths told to us. It’s an oppressive network of burdensome expectations that has us avoiding life because we are looking for something to fill a void that we are told we have. There are no winners or triumphs in this system.
This collection is vividly presented to us with universal themes of exile and loneliness, but the prose shines when Osman tethers her lines to experiences of being a black woman in America, trying to explore the space between being an immigrant and a refugee, and what it means “to be ejected from paradise.”
Other standouts from this collection: “NSFW” (for its humor, intimacy, obtrusive thoughts of violence); "Think of Me as Your Mother" (written for young men being held in prison); “The sea fell on my house” (for exploring the source of her pain); and “Practice With Yearning Theorem: Tangents (for being comfortable with loss).
faloodamooda's review
4.25
It was like a series of dreams! Not what I was expecting. The last poem, Refusing Eurydice, slaps.
freechasetoday's review against another edition
5.0
Highly recommended. Controlled, associative; a microscopic image and satellite photo in the same instant. Check out "Sympathy for Eve."
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