readmoreyall's review against another edition
5.0
Favorite poems: a violence, Virginia is for lovers, a cento for the night I said I love you, object permanence.
thegayngelgabriel's review against another edition
4.0
The best poems in this collection are agile, far-reaching, and playful in a way that is also deadly serious. The attention to sound, pace, and rhythm is often extraordinary.
cstefko's review against another edition
4.0
4.25 stars
Y'all know I had to get around to reading Nicole Sealey's book, since she's been hosting #TheSealeyChallenge. So this collection was a belated Day 8 for the challenge. I quite enjoyed it! I remembered reading one of the poems previously, "the first person who will live to be one hundred and fifty years old has already been born," and I would seriously place it on a list of my all-time favorite poems. It's exquisite, please read it. A lot of the poems in this collection deal with mortality, and they are grounded in physicality and natural imagery. But what I also appreciated was the risks Sealey takes. It's a bold move to have a poem in conversation with your own poem! Definitely recommend this collection, and I'm eager to read more from Sealey.
Y'all know I had to get around to reading Nicole Sealey's book, since she's been hosting #TheSealeyChallenge. So this collection was a belated Day 8 for the challenge. I quite enjoyed it! I remembered reading one of the poems previously, "the first person who will live to be one hundred and fifty years old has already been born," and I would seriously place it on a list of my all-time favorite poems. It's exquisite, please read it. A lot of the poems in this collection deal with mortality, and they are grounded in physicality and natural imagery. But what I also appreciated was the risks Sealey takes. It's a bold move to have a poem in conversation with your own poem! Definitely recommend this collection, and I'm eager to read more from Sealey.
freechasetoday's review against another edition
5.0
EVERY POEM in here is incredible - and I feel I’m learning a lot about how to end a poem from Sealey’s thought-provoking work.
vivakresh's review against another edition
5.0
One of the best books I've read this year -- stunning variety of forms & imaginative use of language to show beauty, pain, a sore identity, daily life.
lizmart88's review against another edition
No rating because you can't rate poetry! It's so subjective.
This was a great book of poetry though. My first time reading Nicole Sealey and I was impressed.
Like many books of poetry, she tries out a variety of types and themes. I loved the three poem series called legendary with a subtitle honoring not famous but incredible women. I also loved a palindrome type poem that reads forward and backward (by line) with the thesis at the end.
She deals with mostly heavy themes about race and gender. But there's also lighter poems that made me laugh.
This was a great book of poetry though. My first time reading Nicole Sealey and I was impressed.
Like many books of poetry, she tries out a variety of types and themes. I loved the three poem series called legendary with a subtitle honoring not famous but incredible women. I also loved a palindrome type poem that reads forward and backward (by line) with the thesis at the end.
She deals with mostly heavy themes about race and gender. But there's also lighter poems that made me laugh.
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
3.0
And, I understand / the stars in the sky are already dead.Here is my favourite poem from this collection:
A VIOLENCEYou hear the high-pitched yowls of strays
fighting for scraps tossed from a kitchen window.
They sound like children you might have had.
Had you wanted children. Had you a maternal bone,
you would wrench it from your belly and fling it
from your fire escape. As if it were the stubborn
shard now lodged in your wrist. No, you would hide it.
Yes, you would hide it inside a barren nesting doll
you've had since you were a child. Its smile
reminds you of your father, who does not smile.
Nor does he believe you are his. "You look just like
your mother," he says, "who looks just like a fire
of suspicious origin." A body, I've read, can sustain
its own sick burning, its own hell, for hours.
It's the mind. It's the mind that cannot.
books4days's review against another edition
3.0
Very interesting collection of poems -- the one about the game Clue (as well as its erasure poem) and the one about Brad Pitt where every line ended with a word containing "pit" were especially clever.
bananafreckles's review against another edition
4.0
I love so much the balance of tones, the playfulness, the depth of questions, the everything. The cento blew my mind, and "Clue" was an utter delight. "Heretofore Unuttered" is my favorite of the whole collection. *chef's kiss*