madamepurpura's review
funny
reflective
fast-paced
3.0
An interesting read. It is more like a small collection of short stories. Most of them deal with similar themes such as freedom, accepting oneself and others, also an attempt to talk about American history. It has beautiful images and even a couple of powerful poems, my favourite is Autobiography of Eve. Anyway overall I end up being underwhelmed by it.
senid's review against another edition
3.0
I am learning about different poetry prizes. This is one I have heard of a few times. Some of the poems had a deep impact. Undoing the lynching. Some scenes in poems i recognized, some i didn't. I recognized the violence, though I see it on the news and not so much in my daily life. The spacing of the lines on the page added to the impact of many of the poems.
hannahvwarren's review
5.0
Speaking from Eve’s point of view, Elkins writes, “Let it be known: I did not fall from grace. / I leapt / to freedom” (“Autobiography of Eve” 14-16).
aliciaprettybrowneyereader's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
I first heard of this poet when reading the short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw. The epigraph for the collection is the last two lines of the poem, Autobiography of Eve from this collection.
When I started reading this collection I knew I would be hooked because the epigraph of the collection is a quote from one of my favorite writers, Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston is a storyteller and so is Elkins. The stories told in this poetry collection cover a myriad: breaking in a horse, Emmett Till’s murder, a traveling preacher, a lost child in the Mississippi delta and others. She tells the stories through memorable characters and descriptions in each of the poems.
The title of the collection is an interesting one. It can be found in the first poem of the collection, Blues for the Death of the Sun. “…I hear a peacock holler this blue yodel.” Each of the poems is like the peacock showing and telling the reader something.
This is a poetry collection I will return to again and again.
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