Ynna's Reviews > The Stranger Manual

One of those anthologies that reminded me why I love to read poetry. Maybe I liked it so much because there's parts of Miss Peach I see in myself, or at least in experiences I've had. My favorite poems were of course the ones about relationships and love, which I guess you could argue were all of them? Whatever, here are my favorite lines:

Maybe one body is simply insufficient.
So they change their minds and decide
to stand by one another's side for years.
They bring flowers and carpet and children
into the act. They refuse to move, ever.
They act as if they've found the only hospitable
spot on earth. I love it when they do that.
---
Books were like tongues cut out of great men.
---
Because that's what love is, after all, isn't it?
The nagging guilty feeling you get after
you wish someone were dead.
---
When we love something, isn't it as if we have grown hands
especially to hold it? What have we ever touched
and not had to watch turn ugly
by the light of some sort of moon?


A book I will certainly return to many times.