"Summertime and the living is
extraordinarily difficult...

This book is uncorrected proof. You read it
on your eyelids. You sleep under it.

...You say you read it but you didn't."

Sometimes books of poetry are extremely accessible with easy subjects about love and trees. Sometimes the poems are so tightly forced into form that if there was ever emotion involved, it's been stamped out. Sometimes a book of poems doesn't hit the mark.

None of that is like Morgan Parker's poetry. She's a good poet, experimental but not just weird, she's interesting, pushing boundaries, pushing consciousness, pushing her reader into some discomfort and pain rather than counted measure. I wouldn't say these are as accessible as nursery rhymes, but they aren't so "Poetry-ish" that they deny the feels.

She shows off her womanhood in all its glory here: complete with body parts, multiple Beyoncé-s, list poems, poems that feel found, surprises, joy, pain, grief, deadpan recountments, teaching poems and poems of discovery. She's in turns rough and then smooth as butter. I found my sense of smell heightened from these poems, which was just bizarre until I noticed my fingertips were tingling too. It literally woke me up and figuratively too.

I borrowed this copy from my library, and now I'm going to own one in "less than 24 hours" says the only retailer who would get me a copy. (Maybe some stores should try just a little harder and I wouldn't have to resort to online marketplaces. Anyway...)

I really loved these poems in the time I had them from the library. I didn't want to give them back, but someone else should enjoy them. I can actually tell from the shape of this book that lots of people already have, which is not the usual case with public library poetry books. I know that I will love them again and again.