Reviews

Belly to the Brutal by Jennifer Givhan

kdawn999's review

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3.0

Some slashingly honest lines in a mode that echoes Plath in places. However, the coherence of the collection is on the mystical blood bonds of motherhood and trauma, and I can’t say I felt completely moved by the woman-wound images here.

shiloniz's review

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5.0

"I release nothing [a body can only hold so much / & mine ride or die bitch, loyal to a fault holds longest] / we who have been damaged / we whose eyes salt over at the slightest kind touch / & for whom the salt later cracks the concrete"

taylorthiel's review

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4.0

If this collection were a coin, one side would be delicacy, the other a knife’s edge. So much of motherhood/womanhood is found in balancing the two and these poems nail it. There’s a braveness in the language and a harshened to the images that continually shocked and intrigued me. The collection won me over with its surprising turns and even some moments of great humor.

lifeinpoetry's review

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5.0

Have you ever needed to lie
flat as if dead against the rockmarked earth
& listen to the voices licking against the sky
your past shuffling through the leaves like a remix
till you finally realize what your life has meant —
& it aches?
When the truth comes, let it come like jewelweed
wilding beside the poison ivy. The antidote
within our reach.

(from “Today I Learned the Word Mondegreen”)

That boy! Kissed me!
What happens next
is nothing.
Nothing unroots.
Nothing rots.

Healing a motherbroken
space for at least the handful
of us, at least for now,
has to be enough.
Amen.

(from “Retablos & Other Miracles”)

I’ve bled without telling
a soul, not ghosted or clinging
to this sticky world, what hunger
compels me onward.
It’s not that I cannot care
about the world we’ve broken.
All afternoon I’ve believed
in my own strength.

(from “Retablos & Other Miracles”)

jenvini's review

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.0

" I carried darkness into the forest & sliced it out."

jenniferlynnkrohn's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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