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illbefinealone's review against another edition
5.0
Copy received through NetGalley
Such a wonderful collection. This poetry deals with such important and heavy subjects, and it's written so beautifully. Mrs. Gregerson has left me rethinking everything I have ever experienced. I still can't process what I just read. I honestly haven't been this speechless.
Such a wonderful collection. This poetry deals with such important and heavy subjects, and it's written so beautifully. Mrs. Gregerson has left me rethinking everything I have ever experienced. I still can't process what I just read. I honestly haven't been this speechless.
enigmaticpaperback's review against another edition
3.0
There were a few stellar poems in here that really hit me, but I didn't feel as strongly a connection with most of the other pieces in here.
abandonlakes's review
4.0
The gods in their mercy once / could turn / a frightened girl to
water, or a shamed one to a tree / but they / no longer seem
to take our troubles much / to heart.
I would like to thank Netgalley for providing me with this ARC.
I adore poetry from the depths of my heart, but I have mainly experienced reading the works of authors in fragments or individually, very rarely in one collected form. However, this book was one of the most gorgeous things I’ve ever experienced.
Linda Gregerson has written something incredible with Prodigal. Her subjects range from mythology to childhood memories, her friends, her parents, urban life and commentary on our contemporary society.
The mythological aspects are the most artful and dazzling part of the work – subtle at some points, outright brilliant at others. She gives a voice to tales unexplored, weaving them artfully with circumstances from today and modern views, resulting in observations that comment all too well on the society we live in. She writes Last night too – do all / of our stories begin with rape?—the girl / came back / from the dead somehow and then takes it further, noting how little everything has changed with the poem being named ‘Ceres Lamenting.’
The atmosphere she creates with the layout of her poems, the words dripping from one line to the next, only served to emphasise the essence of each work; furthermore, each poem seems to carry onto the next, seamlessly weaving the ideas together and creating a feeling in my chest that left me hollow.
A lot of her titles come from artwork and when I realised this, I began to look up the pieces of art; the poems took on an all new level, managing to simultaneously write about the artwork but also capture something of the poet’s own thoughts and experiences.
I felt as though some of her prose pieces were weaker than her poetry; not interesting with their ideas or imaginative with her word choice and the way she strung them together. While this resulted in them being less captivating than some of her other pieces, they still remained well written.
To me, Linda Gregerson writes with precision, allowing each word to ring out in clarity. To me, she manages to touch on the nostalgia of the past – both of her childhood and that of the ancients, writing on Mary Magdalen with words such as The mirror refuses / the candle, you see. And tears on another’s behalf / are not / the mirrors he’s pleased to regard. With her words, she creates a deep ache that settles in my bones and I want to thank her for them.
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