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robinks's review
Something about the syntax of each poem left me confused and unable to see the imagery. I think the author was trying to include too many things.
stephbeaudoin20's review
5.0
Tethered to Stars: Poems by Fady Joudah
The poets know. I treasured this book of poems. There are so many references to caterpillars, butterflies, and transformation. I keep thinking about how butterflies are symbols of migration and immigrants, and how Palestinians have been forcibly removed from their homeland.
I have so many highlights from the book. My favorites are
Taurus
Pieces
Sandra Bland, Texas
Dehiscence
Oxygen
Equinox
Aquarius
Capricorn
Gemini
This might be my favorite highlight from the collection. It makes my heart ache.
From Dehiscence
I knelt into my weeping until my heart broke me awake.
My forehead touched the floor.
This is my sixth book for The Diverse Baseline Challenge, the second for the January prompt of a Collection of Poetry.
The poets know. I treasured this book of poems. There are so many references to caterpillars, butterflies, and transformation. I keep thinking about how butterflies are symbols of migration and immigrants, and how Palestinians have been forcibly removed from their homeland.
I have so many highlights from the book. My favorites are
Taurus
Pieces
Sandra Bland, Texas
Dehiscence
Oxygen
Equinox
Aquarius
Capricorn
Gemini
This might be my favorite highlight from the collection. It makes my heart ache.
From Dehiscence
I knelt into my weeping until my heart broke me awake.
My forehead touched the floor.
This is my sixth book for The Diverse Baseline Challenge, the second for the January prompt of a Collection of Poetry.
haljonesy's review
4.0
Some of my favorite lines:
May the need to ask me / about my darkness / never command you — Canopus
That you have nothing to say. That your deep sadness is free / to be deeply sad near me / some of what love is for — The holy embraces the holy
That your sadness / unbuttons my heart, kneads its clowns. That a heart remains a heart in its beyonds. — The holy embraces the holy
And as ours is / hers is never a straight line / on the lucid path / in a membranous universe — Pisces
What is the threshold / for suffering to create us equal — Sandra bland, Texas
(From bodies to souls, and souls to corpses). You said, the dead don't want to be brought back (I said I don't want to live forever alone) — descending, rising
You're not a language I am / ashamed to sing. You're a language I'm not/ ashamed to sing. — Domicile, house, cusp
Of impermanence, on whose / edges the last escape is infinite / if it is death this destiny / offers me, and in its tail end/ a conduit to another realm/ in which time spins differently / than we've known it to pass — black hole
Before I slam / into the ground from a height I had / no business reaching / through nightmare, I can't / stay calm, can't trust that / whatever ending may come/ will not be my end — Libra
You won't dry up, you're more / than starlight in ashes / or symbionts riding swells. / you're mostly / of this earth, and more cloud / than ground. — Sirius
Was I ever a moth / or you this kind of light? / one of us was dying, and one / had no wings for the journey back.
So that when I'm a stranger in the world / I can find you — Venus cycle
May the need to ask me / about my darkness / never command you — Canopus
That you have nothing to say. That your deep sadness is free / to be deeply sad near me / some of what love is for — The holy embraces the holy
That your sadness / unbuttons my heart, kneads its clowns. That a heart remains a heart in its beyonds. — The holy embraces the holy
And as ours is / hers is never a straight line / on the lucid path / in a membranous universe — Pisces
What is the threshold / for suffering to create us equal — Sandra bland, Texas
(From bodies to souls, and souls to corpses). You said, the dead don't want to be brought back (I said I don't want to live forever alone) — descending, rising
You're not a language I am / ashamed to sing. You're a language I'm not/ ashamed to sing. — Domicile, house, cusp
Of impermanence, on whose / edges the last escape is infinite / if it is death this destiny / offers me, and in its tail end/ a conduit to another realm/ in which time spins differently / than we've known it to pass — black hole
Before I slam / into the ground from a height I had / no business reaching / through nightmare, I can't / stay calm, can't trust that / whatever ending may come/ will not be my end — Libra
You won't dry up, you're more / than starlight in ashes / or symbionts riding swells. / you're mostly / of this earth, and more cloud / than ground. — Sirius
Was I ever a moth / or you this kind of light? / one of us was dying, and one / had no wings for the journey back.
So that when I'm a stranger in the world / I can find you — Venus cycle
literarilytrisha's review
2.0
Now, I am all for the abstract and giving illusions to meaning but so often I lost the emotional teether while I read. I would have to pause and let my eyes drift back up to try and figure out what was being conveyed. There were a few lovely lines but mostly a structure I wasn't used to.
2 cosmic stars.
2 cosmic stars.