Reviews

With Love, Grief and Fury by Salena Godden

libraryoflanelle's review

challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

This is such a wonderful poetry collection, covering so many topics in so much depth. 

I would recommend this to lovers of poetry that perfectly encapsulates some of the most vulnerable elements of the human experience.

There were a handful of poems that felt a little repetitive, and some others that felt slightly out of place in this collection. This is the only reason I didn’t give this one 5 stars personally, but I still loved the collection so much.

Selena has such a talent for capturing those types of human experiences that feel unique when you’re in it but really are incredibly relatable and an integral part of the human experience.

With Love, Grief, and Fury felt like a real labor of love. It felt like a true privilege to be able to glimpse into Salena’s world with this collection.

Some of my favorites were: When You Stub Your Toe, But First Make Tea, Wonderful World, and With Love, Grief, and Fury 2 & 5.

Thanks to NetGalley and Canongate for the e-arc. All opinions are my own.

mscarbie's review

4.0

another delicious book from the talented salena godden. I gotta say I was stunned when netgalley approved this one for me to read, I loved mrs death misses death! 

with love, grief and fury paints a very honest picture about todays society and life. I loved the constant stream of consciousness in some of the longer poems, they felt a bit more raw with feelings. 

the only reason this wasn’t 5 stars for me as some of the poems came across quite repetitive. 

fiendfull's review

4.0

With Love, Grief and Fury is a new collection of poetry by Salena Godden, spanning a huge range of topics from rage at the state of the world to what it is like being a poet. Poems explore love, getting older, injustice, climate, and our collective futures, amongst other things, and there is real variation across the collection. Bringing it together are a sequence of poems with the same title as the collection, exploring the future in various ways. 

 

Perhaps my favourite poem in the collection is 'Wish You Were Here', a poem about climate crisis and the British seaside and Covid-19 all smashed together into a powerful message, picture postcards from the apocalypse. I like that some of the poems take common imagery and ideas and push further into their political implications, like how 'Great-Granddaughters' rethinks ideas of witch heritage in relation to race and class and how 'Dirty Old Men' plays with the contrast between teenagers and the "dirty old men" who hold all the power. The collection is accessible and fast-paced, making it ideal not just for poetry fans, but for people looking for ways to get into poetry (though there are a lot of poems about writing or performing poetry that are perhaps more suited to poets reading the book).