(Okay, my real lore about this book is that I read it in one sitting at the library while waiting to go to my first date with my now-partner of nine m(Okay, my real lore about this book is that I read it in one sitting at the library while waiting to go to my first date with my now-partner of nine months, and we discovered after the fact that we were in fact *both* killing time at the library before said date. #compatibility)
While I did not love this nearly as much as I adored Don't Call Us Deas, Danez Smith is an absolute talent. Homie is themed around the death of a cherished friend.
My favorite poems from the collection included: self portrait as 90s r&b video, I’m going back to minessota where sadness makes sense, say it with your whole black mouth, sometimes I wish I felt the side effects, and waiting on you to die so I can be myself. My favorite poem from the entire collection was actually the ending, Acknowledgments, a poem written about different friends across days. Brilliant, heartfelt, and loving.
Here are some of my favorite lines: ▷I call for god and out comes your name ▶o California, don’t you know the sun is only a god if you learn to starve for her? ▷Love and dust get caught up in us like wind and birds ▶Each hand laid upon my like a rude and starving prayer ▷Love knows where to hide the body ▶I wanted to be the boy who turned into the bird limp in the dog’s wet mouth, holding me towards his human saying, I made this for you. ▷It’s not the sex. the being filled. but the emptiness. void you didn’t know was. until someone stopped it up. ▶I’ll burn this whole shot down like left eye would, like any good wife, whatever survives will be my kingdom. I hope I make it. ▷Dear suicide… I know what happens when you ask for a kiss, it’s all tongue, you don’t unlatch, you suck face until the body is gone
A genuinely brilliant selection of poetry. I never understood before this the degree to which Satan could be a heroic and compelling character.
One ofA genuinely brilliant selection of poetry. I never understood before this the degree to which Satan could be a heroic and compelling character.
One of my favorite of Milton's takes is his depiction of Eve as the smarter of the Adam and Eve pair. Eve's submissiveness, though appealing to Adam, is on some level a deception. In reality, Eve does not wish to stay as his twin, as she fears becoming only his rib: “Was I to have never parted from thy side / As good have grown there still a lifeless rib” (Milton 9.1153-9.1154). Eve is chosen by the Serpent for her desire for power.
Though Milton's text eventually wraps into a space that I think would be hard to characterize as anything but misogynistic, I think the character of this is deeply interesting; Adam and Eve’s punishment for the transgression of gender roles comes in a shift to gender roles. Eve is punished with first pain in childbirth and then submission: “To thy husband’s will / Thine shall submit, he over thee shall rule” (10.195-10.196). So though gender roles are the desired outcome, they're also used as a punishment. And specifically a punishment for the transgression of gender roles, too - the Son of God says to Adam: “Was she thy God, that her thou didst obey / Before his voice, or was she made thy guide / Superior, or but equal, that to her / Thou didst resign thy manhood” (Milton 10.145-10.148).
(137) I want to say something but shame prevents me yet if you had a desire for good or beautiful things and your tongue were not concocting some evil
(137) I want to say something but shame prevents me yet if you had a desire for good or beautiful things and your tongue were not concocting some evil to say shame would not hold down your eyes but rather you would speak about what is just
Sappho (c.630-c.570BCE), one of Ancient Greece’s Nine Lyric Poets, is an absolutely gorgeous poet and writer, one who’s been the subject of much academic discourse. Sappho was a complicated woman. Believed to have written 8 or 9 books, her lover Megara, daughter Kleis, and enemy Andromeda all appear within these texts. Through this translation, Anne Carson attempts to convey the best of her work, through both presentation—sometimes the spacing makes the poem, as with verse 26—and wording, as she discusses in her final notes of the book.
For me, half the appeal of this edition was the work put into translation notes by Carson. Her insights on poem 137’s use of the extremely loaded term aidos (shame), and poem 142’s use of the term hetairai (friend) to connote an intimate relationship with a woman, each deepen the meaning of the poem. I also appreciated Carson’s commentary on 16, 55, 94, and 98. I particularly loved her choice to end on the brief verses, page after page of lines with no context beyond. Each line may be brief, but together they are infinite.
Carson points out that Sappho associates desire with death, an idea that—interestingly enough—is also a function of queer theory in later times. Lee Edelman would, in his iconic 2004 book No Future, argue that because queerness cannot produce the patriarchal ideal of a Child, it is fundamentally defined by a drive towards death. Though I think this can easily become an oversimplification when applied to the ancient world, I couldn’t help but think of this when reading her poetry. If desire is death, what does it mean that through her poetry, her desire has kept her alive?
There is something particularly powerful about a note in Anne Carson’s introduction, where she discusses the fact that much of our remaining knowledge of Sappho comes from references—other ancient artists quoting Sappho, discussing her works, creating poetry inspired by her. I wondered, reading this, what our future histories will look like: Which lines will survive? Which will not?
A few of my highlights are listed below. ____ (16) Some men say an army of horse and some say an army on foot and some men say an army of ships is the most beautiful thing on the black earth. But I say it is What you love.
(22) Because I prayed this word: I want.
(26) ]frequently ]for those I treat well are the ones who most of all ]harm me ]crazy ] ] ] ]you, I want ]to suffer ]in myself I am aware of this ] ] ]
(55) Dead you will lie and never memory of you will there be nor desire into the aftertime—for you do not share in the roses of Poeroa, but invisible too in Hades’ house you will go your way among dim shapes. Having been breathed out.
(69) ] ]sinful ]
(94) I simply want to be dead. Weeping she left me
with many tears and said this: Oh how badly things have turned out for us. Sappho, I swear, against my will I leave you. …
(96) … ]into desire I shall come
(138) stand to face me beloved and open out the grace of your eyes
(158) with anger spreading in the chest to guard against a vainly barking tongue
I also really enjoyed fragments 23, 31, 74B, 91, 93, 95, 104B, 120, 126, 129B, 137 (commentary here) and 147.
I know I’ll return to this collection again, and I’m sure different poems will resonate with me each time. Regardless, I adored this, and am honored to have spent some time with Sappho in 2021.
I’ve always been in love with Luke. For as far back as I can remember.
3 1/2 stars. This is a very sad book in verse about a girl dragged i
I’ve always been in love with Luke. For as far back as I can remember.
3 1/2 stars. This is a very sad book in verse about a girl dragged into a relationship with a much, much older man.
Main strength: I found myself unable to look away. Lily’s story is so horrifying and feels strangely real, starting as if it could be an innocent unrequited crush by a 14-year-old and becoming more and more serious as Logan makes his interest clear. It perfectly mirrors the quick progression of events, and though Lily is very naive, her character consistency makes the entire book so much more horrifying.
Main con: I felt the ending was a little unsatisfying. We don’t see much of her journey to deciding to tell; I think that sometimes realizations and impulsess can come quickly, so this could have been totally fine, but the book ends… immediately upon Lily’s decision.
I don't know if this was the best thing I've ever read, but it was certainly an incredibly tense experience and an enrapturing way to spend my night. I think this will be marketed towards a younger audience - an audience just discovering the dangers in the world - and I'm down for it.
TW: pedophilia, rape via coercion, dissociation, forced alcohol consumption.
that is what abuse is: knowing you are going to get salt but still hoping for sugar for nineteen years.
And so began my journey of love with this coll
that is what abuse is: knowing you are going to get salt but still hoping for sugar for nineteen years.
And so began my journey of love with this collection.
You'll notice I didn't use the beginning quote. Well, I didn't love this from the very beginning. Towards the beginning, I found the formatting slightly annoying. Some poems were fantastic and new and interesting, but some almost made me snort from their cheesiness. At times I feel Amanda Lovelace got so caught up in sounding profound she forgot the true emotional core of her poems. For example, saying “we were crafted from ocean waves and starlight” looks pretty, but means nothing when you think about it.
Towards the second third, though, she hit her stride. I liked her poetry far more when it felt like a coherent stretch, a long length of feeling flowing from left to right across page after page. Her three-word poems did nothing for me. But God, some of the longer poems almost made me cry. The sheer emotional weight of section II's poems is amazing.
sticks and stones never broke my bones, but words made me starve myself until you could see all of them
I also appreciated the intersectionality of the feminist themes presented here. Lovelace's poem on 183 especially made me cry, with both joy and sadness and something in between.
Yes, it's not the best poetry of all time. But the emotional weight is quite good.
And one more quote!!
the love some girls have for other girls is so gentle & so soft & so fucking beautiful, & these girls deserve to have better stories than the ones where they are murdered because they love with too much of their hearts.
maybe i will just never understand poetry unless it is written in longer phrases and verses one brief line is never enough for me no matter how much i r
maybe i will just never understand poetry unless it is written in longer phrases and verses one brief line is never enough for me no matter how much i respect the ideas
Really, though, I have no idea how I felt about this.
Milk and Honey is a collection full of emotion and meaning, but all the poems felt, to me, like unfinished pieces. Each little section of words could have been an amazing, cathartic experience... and yet, it just didn't go to that place for me.
My favorite poems were the extended ones. For example, the poem on pages 140-141 was absolutely fantastic. I could read it over and over again. The rest, though? Nope. One good note, though: section four, the healing, was by far my favorite. I enjoyed section one as well, though it got repetitive. Two and three were worse, though; repeating the same words on love over and over got old fast.
neither of us is happy but neither of us wants to leave so we keep breaking each other and calling it love
Perhaps the unfinished nature of the poems is the point. Maybe Rupi Kaur wanted them to feel missing, to feel unfinished; they're all just little phrases and verses of her life. But it didn't work for me. I craved more out of these little poems and this little book.
i will not have you build me into your life when what i want is to build a life with you
I also think it's fair to point out the accusations of plagiarism placed on Kaur in the Here are somesources on the matter that I think are relevant. Honestly, I don't see the poetry her as being that similar to Nayyirah Waheed's, and that a lot of the concerns are simply about the fact that Kaur is bestselling while other poets are not, which isn't something she, personally, can control. I'd like to bring it to people's minds, but I don't particularly think any of this is direct plagiarism. If I'm missing something, please let me know.
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