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A review by nearfutures
Feeld by Jos Charles
5.0
I finished feeld a few days ago and held off on writing a review because I was struggling to find the words to adequately laud this book. Regardless of content, feeld is brilliantly written and rich with wordplay. Charles deploys double meanings and turn of phrase with a deftness I rarely see in prose, let alone poetry, and she manages to do so without sacrificing precision or aesthetic. In feeld, cleverness is holy.
I've seen mixed responses to the Middle English; certainly it's different, but the writing challenged me to really sit with the words and feel them in my mouth, not just let them glance off of me. And I think that heaviness fits well with the subject of the collection, since it is about speech and trauma and transness. The Middle English gives a tactility to feeld that I don't think would be there otherwise.
For such plaintive, often simple verse, this book hit me hard! Charles is especially good with eye catching beginnings and absolutely devastating endings. Both the spacing and the line breaks feel very exact, and I regret being unable to replicate them in this review. Below, just few of my favorite lines:
Anyway. feeld is brilliant and I would recommend it to everyone, but especially my trans peers. I felt very seen.
I've seen mixed responses to the Middle English; certainly it's different, but the writing challenged me to really sit with the words and feel them in my mouth, not just let them glance off of me. And I think that heaviness fits well with the subject of the collection, since it is about speech and trauma and transness. The Middle English gives a tactility to feeld that I don't think would be there otherwise.
For such plaintive, often simple verse, this book hit me hard! Charles is especially good with eye catching beginnings and absolutely devastating endings. Both the spacing and the line breaks feel very exact, and I regret being unable to replicate them in this review. Below, just few of my favorite lines:
• this is the corse / a tran / a feeld / a corpse (III)
• i see mye trama lit lik candie in ther cotten mothes (IV)
• i get reel spesifick / abot the hemorages i tend inn mye yard (IV)
• i am afrayde / i am riting myeself metonymic off deth (VI)
• a tran is noting but the scens of sum burning / i a lone hav scaped 2 tell u this (XVI)
• bieng tran is a unique kinde off organe / i am speeching materialie / i am speeching abot hereditie (XXIV)
• another question off arkitecktur / how the bloode repeets it rownds (XXVII)
• i am not afrayde i speech myeself (XXX)
• undre the principld skye / ther is no vulnerabilitie / onlie wut protrudes (XXXIII)
• & it is tragyck / bieng undre stood (LII)
Anyway. feeld is brilliant and I would recommend it to everyone, but especially my trans peers. I felt very seen.