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freechasetoday's review against another edition
5.0
“This is about something very hard. / —This is about trying to live with that music / playing in the back of your mind // —About trying to live in a world / with that kind of music.” In this collection, the world makes its noises—lives are lived, stories are told and revised, the body wrestles with the soul. Such cacophony sounds different as it moves by, yet from any angle this collection never ceased to surprise and to move me.
sanfordc11's review against another edition
5.0
I stopped in the middle of reading this book two separate times to think about her poems for a couple days. I almost didn't finish it because I loved it so much. Holy hell, Mead is SO. FUCKING. GOOD. I'm glad I finished it, though. Especially for the closing line: "That is the chicken I want to be."
Believe it or not, it's a perfect ending for a book that begins with the line, "Jesus, I am cruelly lonely." Here there be dragons - Mead is not afraid of the gruesome or the grotesque - but she isn't addicted to flaunting them, either, and so you just have to accept that you'll be caught off guard, and maybe a little put off, but you'll also find yourself awed at how she can take everything, everything - a chicken truck on the highway, a man waiting at the airport - and show that it is beautiful even though it's deadly and terrifying. Over and over, she's asking the questions I think we all ask, all the time, in our own million ways: what does it mean, that I am here? Where is here? Who am I?
I want to quote every poem here. I won't quote any. I will, however, buy this book so I can reread it again and again.
Believe it or not, it's a perfect ending for a book that begins with the line, "Jesus, I am cruelly lonely." Here there be dragons - Mead is not afraid of the gruesome or the grotesque - but she isn't addicted to flaunting them, either, and so you just have to accept that you'll be caught off guard, and maybe a little put off, but you'll also find yourself awed at how she can take everything, everything - a chicken truck on the highway, a man waiting at the airport - and show that it is beautiful even though it's deadly and terrifying. Over and over, she's asking the questions I think we all ask, all the time, in our own million ways: what does it mean, that I am here? Where is here? Who am I?
I want to quote every poem here. I won't quote any. I will, however, buy this book so I can reread it again and again.
freechasetoday's review
5.0
“This is about something very hard. / —This is about trying to live with that music / playing in the back of your mind // —About trying to live in a world / with that kind of music.” In this collection, the world makes its noises—lives are lived, stories are told and revised, the body wrestles with the soul. Such cacophony sounds different as it moves by, yet from any angle this collection never ceased to surprise and to move me.
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