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leighlucas's review against another edition
5.0
"O whatever God or whatever ancestor that wins the next life
i pray let me be an artifact of use. let all my poems be
bowls or thrones or hairpieces or marriages.
let everything i make, if it should survive, tell the next world
mine were a people of faculty and faith."
i pray let me be an artifact of use. let all my poems be
bowls or thrones or hairpieces or marriages.
let everything i make, if it should survive, tell the next world
mine were a people of faculty and faith."
jess_mango's review against another edition
4.0
As I just stated in another review, I don't read a ton of poetry but do try to pick up a handful of poetry books everywhere to keep my reading varied and diverse. Finna seemed like a perfect book to fit that niche. Finna is an honest collection of poems about growing up Black in Chicago. I found these really meaningful especially given the current climate in the USA with a summer full of race-related protests. Nate Marshall's poems are modern and accessible. They use vernacular to share his experience and thoughts on race in America and in particular Chicago.
If you are going to pick up one poetry collection this year, this would be a great choice for you.
Thank you to the publisher for the advanced copy of this book!
If you are going to pick up one poetry collection this year, this would be a great choice for you.
Thank you to the publisher for the advanced copy of this book!
alymiwasaa's review against another edition
5.0
amazing collection!! i love Black people and being Black and i will always love Black people and being Black tbh ……… this is a such a beautifully crafted celebration of Blackness, an ode to Black joy and you need to read it now !!!!!! favourite poems: my granddaddy sees the streets, conceal, my mother’s hands, aubade for the whole hood, imagine, and FINNA, of course!
vivandbooks's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Took me a minute to get into but I thought this was superb. Playful. Powerful. I’ll come back to this one.
meemzter's review against another edition
4.0
Ironically I picked up Finna because I wanted a quick read. What could be quicker than a notebook-thin poetry collection? But Nate Marshall's poems were weightier than a quick read would allow for, and I sometimes would put this collection down after reading a single poem, feeling like I owed it a little more time.
If Finna was a surprise for how each poem demanded my full attention, it was also a surprise in how much the content related to my life as a linguist. There are more than a handful of poems that I am tempted to recommend for inclusion in our sociolinguistics course. Nate Marshall uses "finna" as a gateway to discuss linguistic discrimination, code-switching, and dialect. Many of these poems are celebrations of Black language and Black linguistic innovation.
An excellent collection of poems. It ended up not being a quick read, but it was assuredly a good one.
If Finna was a surprise for how each poem demanded my full attention, it was also a surprise in how much the content related to my life as a linguist. There are more than a handful of poems that I am tempted to recommend for inclusion in our sociolinguistics course. Nate Marshall uses "finna" as a gateway to discuss linguistic discrimination, code-switching, and dialect. Many of these poems are celebrations of Black language and Black linguistic innovation.
An excellent collection of poems. It ended up not being a quick read, but it was assuredly a good one.