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barnstormingbooks's review against another edition
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
Pocketknife Bible is an interesting collection, of mostly prose poems with a few freeform and lots of illustrations (Mojgani was a visual artist before becoming a poet). There is an innocence and sweetness to Mojgani’s work, even when discussing difficult topics that invites the reader in. His background as a spoken word poet makes his prose poems rich and impactful, with unexpected imagery.
Broken into three parts the Pocket Knife Bible starts out as a remembering of his childhood in New Orleans and of his family. Part II is all illustrations, that are actually connected to the imagery in Part III where the speaker tells of a complex dream where the speaker as a child meets his adult self and then enters into a time loop of remembering and adventure. It is wonderfully weird.
tate_modern's review against another edition
5.0
Some favorite lines:
"A wolf is holding my heart in its mouth. I don't know if I am being carried or being eaten. But somehow I will feed some part of him."
"My heart is a bird of soft colors & dark eyes. When it uses its beam to clean its feathers it looks up and stares at people longingly. Sometimes my heart reaches. Sometimes it pushes back. Somehow it sometimes does this with the same motion.
Every night I pray for a lantern in my chest. I pray the lantern to be big. To follow it through myself and over the hills. Some nights are foggy. Some mornings I can't make my face out at all."
"I wave my hands at the world when it passes past to remind it I am here. Sometimes when I wave my hands the rest of my body feels like a whisper. I become a secret waiting to be shared. I hear frogs singing it to the darkness. The trees move to their song. All the night knows the secret of my heart. It all makes me feel like the stars, large but far enough away to seem small. Like telescopes are looking at me while they look through them. My body a balloon rising out of water."
"How strange that for something to sound empty it has to make noise inside something else."
"A wolf is holding my heart in its mouth. I don't know if I am being carried or being eaten. But somehow I will feed some part of him."
"My heart is a bird of soft colors & dark eyes. When it uses its beam to clean its feathers it looks up and stares at people longingly. Sometimes my heart reaches. Sometimes it pushes back. Somehow it sometimes does this with the same motion.
Every night I pray for a lantern in my chest. I pray the lantern to be big. To follow it through myself and over the hills. Some nights are foggy. Some mornings I can't make my face out at all."
"I wave my hands at the world when it passes past to remind it I am here. Sometimes when I wave my hands the rest of my body feels like a whisper. I become a secret waiting to be shared. I hear frogs singing it to the darkness. The trees move to their song. All the night knows the secret of my heart. It all makes me feel like the stars, large but far enough away to seem small. Like telescopes are looking at me while they look through them. My body a balloon rising out of water."
"How strange that for something to sound empty it has to make noise inside something else."
with_drea's review against another edition
4.0
Reading this book was like looking at a surrealist art piece-- which is to say I loved it! The little art interspersed among the poems are absolutely beautiful, and the way that the poems ultimately connect to the art just blows my mind. It reminded me of a somewhat trippier Little Prince.
badmom's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
guardyanangel's review
4.0
Reading this book was like looking at a surrealist art piece-- which is to say I loved it! The little art interspersed among the poems are absolutely beautiful, and the way that the poems ultimately connect to the art just blows my mind. It reminded me of a somewhat trippier Little Prince.
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