A review by emquartz15
The Beautiful: Collected Poems by Michelle Tea

adventurous dark emotional funny reflective medium-paced

5.0

There are ENDLESS gems in this book. Tea is so clever and imaginative, seamlessly weaving her story—and the greater story of what it means to be queer, anti-capitalist, etc. in America—with striking yet sensible metaphors. Only a couple downsides. First, sometimes the writing ages itself with offensive language. Aside from that, the lack of punctuation and overuse of line breaks brought confusion I deemed unnecessary. It frustrated me because I just wanted to focus on the amazing stories being told. Also, I would have liked more breaks overall in the form to make the poetry more digestible, but of course that’s a personal preference. It took me awhile to finish the book, and I had to take a long break from it because of the density/subject matter, but I love knowing it’s on my shelf. (I NEED to hear some of these poems read aloud.) A couple of my favorites are “Our Lady of Ridiculous Wishes” and “What I Mean by American.” 
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