Content Warning: Everything
Ratings5
Average rating3.3
Favourite poems were
- What if Jesus was my big brother
- Folding for a cruel man
- Excommunication
- Oh Delilah
- Healing
More beautiful writing from Akwaeke Emezi in their first poetry collection, tackling big topics like sexual assault, abuse, and loss, and testing the limits of the precarious balance of sacred and profane. Each poem is resonant with rage and grief and steeped in magic. I really enjoyed this but I definitely prefer their longform writing - their prose benefits from the room for expansion that poetry cannot provide. Regardless, Emezi remains one of my favourite contemporary writers and I look forward to gaining more context for this collection via their memoir.
as waves battered over my head, i held my breathand i did not die, do you hear? i did not diewhat i'm saying is, it doesn't matter which wateri will never know what it's like to drown