Still Falling: Poems

Thank you NetGalley and (publisher) for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

This was literally awesome. That's the only word I can think of. Awesome.

Jennifer Gratz's, “Still Falling” is a poetry book of storytelling enveloped in nature and the senses, like the way a freight train desperately wants to be heard, or greetings of the crow. It surrounds grief, shows the aftermath of certain devastating moments and relationships we all experience, and observes the world/nature in such a distinctive, intelligent way.

When I first read this, I was searching for answers, for explanations, for some sort of resolve. However, this book is not focused on giving the juicy details of our despair, of our trauma. It gives us just enough. For example, it seems as if the “you” in these poems, which I read as most of the time as the same person the speaker seems to know intimately, remains unnamed. In poems like, “Who Understands”, I'm left with more questions than when I began. While in other poems, like “Grief”, grief becomes something so distinct, so obvious and easy to understand that I'm right there. I'm standing at the stove with the speaker, sweating and crying and coping just as they are. What the poems have in common though is intimacy and the speaker's curiosity and wisdom despite it.

This book is full of honesty, of relationships, the sudden and the gradual loss of them. It's curious of humanity, of love, of death. I think of “Staring at the Sun”, though most of these poems end or include some sort of philosophical or unanswerable question. This is what tells me the speaker has so much left to discover. At the same time, the speaker is incredibly wise. They are smart enough to ask the questions no one else thinks of. Besides its theme, the imagery in this book is perfection. It's obscure and sensory and unique. Gosh. This is such an incredible book of poetry. I love love loved it.

This was literally awesome. That's the only word I can think of. Awesome.

some of favorite lines:

“At first, like grief, snow covers everything”

“He weighed 953 pounds. To make him stop, / all I had to do was hold my breath.”

“I wrapped my hand around cattail / and squeezed: spongy and veloured / as an espresso-soaked ladyfinger”