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bluelilyblue's review
5.0
I'm still completely submerged into Leila Chatti's delicate account of illness, faith, and womanhood. There's a lot to be said about the symbolic consistency, the mastery of poetic form, the interaction with other texts, but what I know will stick with me is the patience with which she peers into the darkest depths of the soul and the body; and although there is shame here, as well as anger and fear and bodily pain, the collection as a whole is anchored in trust (in others, in the written word, in God, in whatever it might take to restore one to contentment). I lost count of how many times this collection made my jaw drop.
sasha_hurwitz's review
5.0
I am so moved by this book. I took my time and savored each poem. When it began with "From the depths I have cried out to you, O Lord", I knew it was going to break me. This book should be assigned reading to every woman. As Leila goes along questioning the ideas of being a woman and all it comprises whilst dealing with the abnormalities, the shame, the emptiness and the fullness that are assigned as moral duties, I began to slowly unravel my life. There is so much pain and confusion that we keep hidden inside of us because we do not know how to vocalize it and to whom. Even saying the words to other women diminishes what we feel as we feel ourselves surrendering in a fight.
As a collection of poems, I have never read so many inventive poems tied together so well. I highly recommend this book to whoever is interested in exploring and understanding disease, guilt, grief, shame and womanhood.
As a collection of poems, I have never read so many inventive poems tied together so well. I highly recommend this book to whoever is interested in exploring and understanding disease, guilt, grief, shame and womanhood.
egilmore's review
5.0
Speechless. This collection is incredible… I don’t think I’ve loved one this much since Night Sky with Exit Wounds. Chatti takes a traumatic illness and runs with it for all its worth. She examines the intersection of chronic vaginal bleeding with faith and gender norms, exploring every image and metaphor you can and cannot think of. This book is both furiously raw (the imagery feels quite stream of consciousness/associative) and yet pristinely polished (that same imagery cuts to the heart of the matter with exquisite precision.) In some ways this collection is a bit homogenous and repetitive but that only amplifies its passion and fury. The emotion here is stunning.
keight's review
5.0
Leila Chatti’s poem “Angel” was recently an installment of Pome, and this collection includes it (you can also read it on The Kenyon Review). That one is still my favorite, but this collection is full of similarly gutting perspectives on health challenges and the navigation of medical realms with a gauze of religious themes.
... I was just beginning
to understand the possibilities, my body’s
elusive, independent workings, machineries
chugging away in dark chambers
not just left to but simply
their own devices, unknowable and sovereign.
What I wanted, always, to be:
in control. And I knew this was
impossible, just as I knew, even then, that
to be a mother was to be the only
permissible form of a woman, the begrudging
exception to the rule of our worth-
lessness.
... I was just beginning
to understand the possibilities, my body’s
elusive, independent workings, machineries
chugging away in dark chambers
not just left to but simply
their own devices, unknowable and sovereign.
What I wanted, always, to be:
in control. And I knew this was
impossible, just as I knew, even then, that
to be a mother was to be the only
permissible form of a woman, the begrudging
exception to the rule of our worth-
lessness.