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koseto_tliterature's review against another edition
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
amycrea's review
challenging
emotional
funny
medium-paced
4.0
A lot of the usual questions here don't apply, as this is a poetry collection.
sophiejuhlin's review
4.0
Wow, I can’t believe someone leaked my coven’s manifesto.
Ferocious. Smirking and self-aware. A scholarly and thoroughly academic appreciation of O Great Kate, and the kind of written intimacy that is all at once an arm around your shoulder, a razor at your neck, and a head dreaming on your stomach.
I would like to take this book out for a drink now that we’ve gotten to know each other.
Ferocious. Smirking and self-aware. A scholarly and thoroughly academic appreciation of O Great Kate, and the kind of written intimacy that is all at once an arm around your shoulder, a razor at your neck, and a head dreaming on your stomach.
I would like to take this book out for a drink now that we’ve gotten to know each other.
percystjoan's review
5.0
stunningly hilarious and smart and brutal and just all of the best parts of contemporary poetry wrapped up into one perfect collection with allll the homages to kate bush <3 i haven't gotten any poetry in in a while and this just hit everything i was looking for and now i need a physical copy because i need to underline the fuck out of it!
the girls i grew up with were hard
& inscrutable as mirrored cop glasses-
they reflected your fear right back at you.
They had shins like weapons & weren't afraid
to hurt you. They were gleaming, high-busted
& knew their way around a pool table.
They moved down the court of my adolescence:
Muscle & Hair & High-Five. They aced
precalculus & clattered down those awful halls
like the air of high school was hugging them.
Their retainers glinted when they grinned
& when they laughed hard, you could sometimes
see the whole firmament of sparkly blue plastic.
They all took up Texas two-stepping-tan & top
heavy with God. They had cliques & Clinique
& intentions to study International Business.
Without intending to, their limbs sawed at the new
wood of me. I was soft & easily outdone.
I flung myself in the path of their collective
Jeep Cherokee & said my dad had stranded me.
They didn't stop-even though I smiled,
even though I said, Please. Even though
I'd baked them lemon cupcakes
& daubed Love's Baby Soft between my knees.
i thought no one would ever love me
so I lay in my daybed at night
& fashioned myself a Future
Wife. Someone like the girl
up the street with the old tan
Volvo. The one with one foot
in volleyball & the other
in drama club. Maybe I hid
her pearls & a satin-trim
robe. Maybe I cut her
diploma into fleur-de-lis
& dipped them in the dark
chocolate of my chintzy
desires. I installed My Wife
in a woody, masculine den
& made her whippet-willed
& full of brandy. I stole her
hairspray & gave her a letter desk
instead & an actual inkwell.
I gave her a lockable, leather-
bound love. I imagined her parents
somewhere safe, warm & out
of the way. We summered in Monaco,
read nothing but Daphne du Maurier,
took our sun at the Top of the City.
She had a smile like a high-wire act
& a signature like a sigil. I never
stopped loving the way she slid
into day-old stockings like a snake
reassuming its shed. In truth?
Her name was Jill. She wore
athletic shorts & never spoke
to me. So I renamed her Miriam
de Havilland & had her
handle my correspondence.
We cohabitated fantastically.
I installed paintings throughout
our Morning Room: storm-
flecked seas, gold-framed
& foaming at the mouth!
golden age drinking
Our upstairs neighbor's apartment is leaking
"Moon River" again-it trickles
down the stairs & under our door.
It puts chopsticks in my chignon
& spritzes the place with Jean Patou.
The girl up there
has been crying
for three days straight.
She's pretty, pale & looks like
she's made of matchsticks, but
she heaves her Sadness around
the building like a Giant Toddler
on a short leash.
She never seems to sleep.
When she checks her mailbox
we can see she's a cuttr.
This is the late '90s though,
so what's happening
feels more like an Aesthetic
than a Situation.
In the Mansion of Many Apartments,
we keep facing a choice:
whether to leave certainty
for something else
which might be messy,
awkward, or mean.
When I try to look through
the prism of my early twenties
all I really see is gin, scorn
& a marble chess set. My stupid
Scorpio earrings. I took baths,
felt wrath. I didn't even have
a real job, just a Lover who fed me
slivers of cheese & apple off a knife
in a silver hammock we scored
for free on Craigslist. Did I think I was
some kind of French Duke or what?
By day I did my vocal exercises & listened
to cassette tapes: etymological lectures, French
lessons, Robert Lowell intoning "nine-knot yawl"
& "I myself am hell; nobody's here-"
By night I blew long curls of lavender
smoke & Julie London tunes through
the cracks in our ceiling like I was
fumigating millennial centipedes.
Our upstairs neighbor?
The short answer is
I don't know what happened.
None of us did
a damn thing but drink & egg each
other on with increasingly melancholic music.
In hallways, I still see her
rhinestone spine flash & wriggle back
into the shadow of the fact:
we made a Whole Skit of her
but never even knocked.
[also: halloween in the anthropocene, we sing mozart's requiem in the back of the cruiser, on the dubious honor of being the prettiest, how to talk the manic away, i wake up in the underworld of my own dirty purse, and this was supposed to be an ode to aqua net.]
the girls i grew up with were hard
& inscrutable as mirrored cop glasses-
they reflected your fear right back at you.
They had shins like weapons & weren't afraid
to hurt you. They were gleaming, high-busted
& knew their way around a pool table.
They moved down the court of my adolescence:
Muscle & Hair & High-Five. They aced
precalculus & clattered down those awful halls
like the air of high school was hugging them.
Their retainers glinted when they grinned
& when they laughed hard, you could sometimes
see the whole firmament of sparkly blue plastic.
They all took up Texas two-stepping-tan & top
heavy with God. They had cliques & Clinique
& intentions to study International Business.
Without intending to, their limbs sawed at the new
wood of me. I was soft & easily outdone.
I flung myself in the path of their collective
Jeep Cherokee & said my dad had stranded me.
They didn't stop-even though I smiled,
even though I said, Please. Even though
I'd baked them lemon cupcakes
& daubed Love's Baby Soft between my knees.
i thought no one would ever love me
so I lay in my daybed at night
& fashioned myself a Future
Wife. Someone like the girl
up the street with the old tan
Volvo. The one with one foot
in volleyball & the other
in drama club. Maybe I hid
her pearls & a satin-trim
robe. Maybe I cut her
diploma into fleur-de-lis
& dipped them in the dark
chocolate of my chintzy
desires. I installed My Wife
in a woody, masculine den
& made her whippet-willed
& full of brandy. I stole her
hairspray & gave her a letter desk
instead & an actual inkwell.
I gave her a lockable, leather-
bound love. I imagined her parents
somewhere safe, warm & out
of the way. We summered in Monaco,
read nothing but Daphne du Maurier,
took our sun at the Top of the City.
She had a smile like a high-wire act
& a signature like a sigil. I never
stopped loving the way she slid
into day-old stockings like a snake
reassuming its shed. In truth?
Her name was Jill. She wore
athletic shorts & never spoke
to me. So I renamed her Miriam
de Havilland & had her
handle my correspondence.
We cohabitated fantastically.
I installed paintings throughout
our Morning Room: storm-
flecked seas, gold-framed
& foaming at the mouth!
golden age drinking
Our upstairs neighbor's apartment is leaking
"Moon River" again-it trickles
down the stairs & under our door.
It puts chopsticks in my chignon
& spritzes the place with Jean Patou.
The girl up there
has been crying
for three days straight.
She's pretty, pale & looks like
she's made of matchsticks, but
she heaves her Sadness around
the building like a Giant Toddler
on a short leash.
She never seems to sleep.
When she checks her mailbox
we can see she's a cuttr.
This is the late '90s though,
so what's happening
feels more like an Aesthetic
than a Situation.
In the Mansion of Many Apartments,
we keep facing a choice:
whether to leave certainty
for something else
which might be messy,
awkward, or mean.
When I try to look through
the prism of my early twenties
all I really see is gin, scorn
& a marble chess set. My stupid
Scorpio earrings. I took baths,
felt wrath. I didn't even have
a real job, just a Lover who fed me
slivers of cheese & apple off a knife
in a silver hammock we scored
for free on Craigslist. Did I think I was
some kind of French Duke or what?
By day I did my vocal exercises & listened
to cassette tapes: etymological lectures, French
lessons, Robert Lowell intoning "nine-knot yawl"
& "I myself am hell; nobody's here-"
By night I blew long curls of lavender
smoke & Julie London tunes through
the cracks in our ceiling like I was
fumigating millennial centipedes.
Our upstairs neighbor?
The short answer is
I don't know what happened.
None of us did
a damn thing but drink & egg each
other on with increasingly melancholic music.
In hallways, I still see her
rhinestone spine flash & wriggle back
into the shadow of the fact:
we made a Whole Skit of her
but never even knocked.
[also: halloween in the anthropocene, we sing mozart's requiem in the back of the cruiser, on the dubious honor of being the prettiest, how to talk the manic away, i wake up in the underworld of my own dirty purse, and this was supposed to be an ode to aqua net.]
courtneyfalling's review
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.5
Vengeful funky poetry with lots of exclamation points! Not my perfect cup of tea but think this would really work for some people.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual harassment
bellwetherdays's review
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
naomi_ovr's review
4.0
very imaginative! several of the poems are really excellent. and then i read the notes in the back…kinda feels like it was written for me
madding78's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0