cstefko's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars
Another very earnest collection... seems to be the unintentional theme for my poetry reading this fall. I didn't always like the conversational tone of the poems, but there were many poignant moments that redeemed them for me. For once, though, I liked a long poem! "Is There Something I Should Know?" covers a lot of ground (the overarching theme being girlhood) effortlessly, and I kind of feel like I want to print it out now to have ready for my niece to read in a year or two, since she is quickly approaching her "700 days." On another note, the music references didn't always work for me in a literal sense, but the spirit of them did. "Living Will," one of the early poems, was a perfect encapsulation of my struggle with this collection as a whole: there were so many knock-out lines that then felt cheapened by some of the more obvious (dare I say indulgent) wordplay. Taken all together, I guess it was a mixed bag for me, but definitely an enjoyable collection and well worth a read, particularly for anyone who has ever been an obsessive fan of music.
Another very earnest collection... seems to be the unintentional theme for my poetry reading this fall. I didn't always like the conversational tone of the poems, but there were many poignant moments that redeemed them for me. For once, though, I liked a long poem! "Is There Something I Should Know?" covers a lot of ground (the overarching theme being girlhood) effortlessly, and I kind of feel like I want to print it out now to have ready for my niece to read in a year or two, since she is quickly approaching her "700 days." On another note, the music references didn't always work for me in a literal sense, but the spirit of them did. "Living Will," one of the early poems, was a perfect encapsulation of my struggle with this collection as a whole: there were so many knock-out lines that then felt cheapened by some of the more obvious (dare I say indulgent) wordplay. Taken all together, I guess it was a mixed bag for me, but definitely an enjoyable collection and well worth a read, particularly for anyone who has ever been an obsessive fan of music.
eilyk97's review against another edition
3.0
I think the only reason I didn't enjoy this collection as much as I wanted to was because the stakes weren't so high. A lot of the poetry I love is a punch to the face, and this is...something else. It's very different from what I'm used to. Hands down, the best parts were about the poet's experiences in "the dyke loft" onward through her experiences during adolescence. Those were the most gripping, the ones I got lost in. Shaughnessy has this one line at the very beginning of the collection, though, that was my favorite from the whole work: "the past is so horribly fast."
...
"When I am really feeling, / I get very tired, I fall asleep.."
"There is no color but what's already / inside the eye."
"There is no body without life. / There is no mind without body. / There is no without."
-McQueen Is Dead. Long Live McQueen.
"Not even ink makes / the best ink; wine / better spreads a stain / and the mouth is / already wet - the better to contain a fire / or catch a fish / or tell a story sharpening / the point of the last / meal..."
-Artisinal
"If I were fourteen again, I wouldn't be in this situation now, / trying to write without a pen. Isn't blood a woman's ink?"
"During the 700 days I began to understand / that when love happened, I'd become real."
-Is There Something I Should Know?
...
"When I am really feeling, / I get very tired, I fall asleep.."
"There is no color but what's already / inside the eye."
"There is no body without life. / There is no mind without body. / There is no without."
-McQueen Is Dead. Long Live McQueen.
"Not even ink makes / the best ink; wine / better spreads a stain / and the mouth is / already wet - the better to contain a fire / or catch a fish / or tell a story sharpening / the point of the last / meal..."
-Artisinal
"If I were fourteen again, I wouldn't be in this situation now, / trying to write without a pen. Isn't blood a woman's ink?"
"During the 700 days I began to understand / that when love happened, I'd become real."
-Is There Something I Should Know?
kfan's review against another edition
4.0
80s pop coming of age fever dream. If you like poetry mixed with lyrics from Erasure, Duran Duran, and Simple Minds (THINK OF THE TENDER THINGS THAT WE WERE WORKING ON), and you should, this is your gal.
eliza_v_paige's review against another edition
4.0
This collection is very inspiring. I enjoyed her voice that was evoked in each poem, both personable and relatable.
robbybailey's review against another edition
4.0
I’ve been meaning to read Shaughnessy for a very long time and I am glad I picked this one up. It’s full of heady nostalgia and sound and it just reminds you that we’re all connected...our music and ways of getting it are just different
blreed's review against another edition
5.0
I first heard of Brenda Shaughnessy's work on a poetry podcast... some indeterminate amount of time before the pandemic. I filed her away as a poet to get to at some point, and then didn't until my current madcap poetry binge, and was pleased to find that I had stumbled into checking out yet another volume of queer verse. The pieces I like best are the ones about girlhood and adolescence, especially "Is There Something I Should Know?" which has the following line that stopped me short:
"But if I suffered sharply, I could scarcely trace it soft:"
And, I mean, wow, right? That thumps along so satisfying, so Dickinson-esque. It feels good in ear and mouth. It's smooth and round and contained, despite the colon that draws you deeper into the long poem in which it's nestled. That's a line to use as a social media bio, write on the cover of your notebook, tattoo on your heart if not your skin.
I think this is a collection I can try to tag along with and take something from.
"But if I suffered sharply, I could scarcely trace it soft:"
And, I mean, wow, right? That thumps along so satisfying, so Dickinson-esque. It feels good in ear and mouth. It's smooth and round and contained, despite the colon that draws you deeper into the long poem in which it's nestled. That's a line to use as a social media bio, write on the cover of your notebook, tattoo on your heart if not your skin.
I think this is a collection I can try to tag along with and take something from.
cloudslikethis's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars
This book was a lot more playful than her last one. It alternated between short playful poems (by playful I mean super velvety in your mouth language, lots of alliteration, etc.) and longer poems about growing up into a woman and discovering her sexuality (I believe she identifies as bisexual). I'm not sure which of the two groups were my favorite but it was fun to read. She said this a book to her daughter which I can totally get.
Also, I'm absolutely obsessed with the cover of this book, the desire to touch it is so strong and the imagined texture of the fabric pictured is how I would describe these poems.
This book was a lot more playful than her last one. It alternated between short playful poems (by playful I mean super velvety in your mouth language, lots of alliteration, etc.) and longer poems about growing up into a woman and discovering her sexuality (I believe she identifies as bisexual). I'm not sure which of the two groups were my favorite but it was fun to read. She said this a book to her daughter which I can totally get.
Also, I'm absolutely obsessed with the cover of this book, the desire to touch it is so strong and the imagined texture of the fabric pictured is how I would describe these poems.