Very personal, rather bleak poems dealing with issues of mental health, abuse and cultural heritage.
Not really to my taste but well written nonetheless.

My relationship with poetry is somewhat strained. I want to love it, and sometimes I do, but it doesn't always speak to me the way it seems to speak to others and I wish it did. I have the same mixed feelings about this collection. It was beautiful to read at times, it was uncomfortable to read at times, and it was often both at once. There were definitely poems I loved, and overall, I definitely thought this was a good collection. But it also felt messy, especially thematically, because we bounced from one theme to another and there wasn't a clear structure.

CWs: rape, sexual assault, racism, homophobia, addiction

Daley-Ward has an incredible way with words. Bone is a powerful collection of poems that does not pull its punches in the slightest. I personally found the shorter verses featured within this book to be the most devastating and almost brutal in their abruptness.

A very raw and impactful offering here. Recommended.

With thanks to Netgalley and Penguin for allowing me to have a look at this.

Review cross-posted to Goodreads.

So I finished this poetry collection about a month ago, and it is only now that I feel able to properly express my thoughts.

Daley-Ward is a fantastic writer and poet. Out of all the poetry collections I've recently read that have similar themes and writing styles, hers captured my attention the most. When I read her poems, I felt like I was absorbing pure energy, as she manages to capture such deep and raw emotion almost effortlessly. Partly why I am praising this collection so much is that I really relate to a lot of her poems and her story - our lives are (of course) not exactly the same, but there are definitely some similar events and cultural issues that I have also experienced, and as such, at times it felt like poems were speaking directly to me. That's a very powerful thing to achieve. I would recommend this poetry collection to all young black women growing up in Britain - there is something for everyone.

(As a side note - I am seeing her later this week at a book launch for her new memoir, The Terrible. I am so so excited!)

Although the ARC formatting meant it was difficult to spot when a new poem began, I loved this collection. Every poem was striking and memorable. Thoroughly recommend.

A wonderful collection of poetry that will resonate with modern readers. I will most certainly read Yrsa Daley Ward's future collections.

Everything Yrsa writes is pure and brutally honest, like this book was and I fell in love with her writing in an instant.
I am obig sucker for poetry and this one was just as deep and frightening that it was one point, and it told me a story, so different from my own, but it still touched my soul.
So for all poetry lovers - read this book and enjoy!

Book Review:

I had heard so many good things about this book and as I have been getting into poetry I wanted to give this ago. I did like bone but I feel like it could have been better and I didn't connect with personally.

This collection combined poetry and prose linking to Yrsa's experiences. It is tender and cuts to the bone. There were definitely elements and pieces that I did enjoy did there were others that I didn't really connect with and I think that is what makes or breaks poetry collections for me. I would still love to read more of Daley-Ward's work and know that other people are going to really love this while I only enjoyed some of it.

The Verdict:


bone is interesting and important that everyone should read as they might connect with this more than I did.

This poetry collection is deeply personal. That is something I noticed very soon. Some of these poems border on short stories and those were the best in here. They cut deep and left me thinking. The shorter ones didn't really touch me that much and got a bit repetitive after time.

The author is definitely talented and shows her inner feelings in this collection and that made it special. It set it apart from other poetry collections I read. Most of them have a similar feel, but this one stood out.

I couldn't really connect to most of the religious themes, but I still enjoyed the critical stand it had towards how religion is carried out. The themes in this collection are dark and deal with anything from sexual assault to race. I would say it's more for mature readers, since the poetry can get a bit depressing, especially because of it's reality. I loved how it always felt real and like someone opened their heart to me as a reader and never like something made up.

Poetry is not usually my thing but I was intrigued by the cover on this and had heard so much about it online. So glad I requested it. It was beautiful, painful and raw. Yrsa Daley-Ward is a bright talent. Devoured this collection. Looking forward to whatever Yrsa writes next.

I liked a lot of the pieces in this collection. Whilst some didn't really have much effect on me. There were others that I found beautiful and heartfelt. Definitely worth a read.

Her writing

Her words are direct and hard hitting. The author knows what she wants to say and how it ought to be said. The sentences are short. The only words that are there are those that NEED to be there. This poetry collection could be a reference for those who want to write simple but crisp.

Complications well-spoken of

Yrsa Daley-Ward is not a shier. She does not shy away from complicated feelings. There are feelings talked about. Be it of the darkest desires of the most devout women or the mental abuse that the makes you feel on the edge. It is all there bared naked.

Types of men she talks about- Spoiler alert: there is no good kind

Yrsa Daley-Ward talks about men. She talks about the men who have been dedicated to their family all their life only to turn out to be cross dresser. Interested in being someone else’s women. There are also those who are going to always have an excuse for forcing themselves upon you- but it looked like you were having fun, oh but you are great I couldn’t keep myself from you, oh but you like me on you don’t you remember, baby?

Semi-autobiographical writing

The author has poured pain in the form of poetry. She says- you are bruised but it will give you poetry. While some will disagree with the self-bleeding kind of talent I see it as channeling you pain into art. There are deepest darkest secrets and pain running through the soul that you will see in the poetry and to me that is out of the world.

There is positivity

There is some advice for those who do not see the light in the tunnel. She asks you to get up, sit up and serve your time. Do not run away.

The prose is as great as the poetry

It was due to her poetry that I wanted to read the author at least once. But in the collection I found some great prose as well. I read ‘It is what it is’ from On snakes and Other Stories that featured in this book as well.

This felt like an accessible poetry collection. Most of the time, in place of rhyming, there was rhythm and it all feels very personal. Each poem is a peek into a story where you're told just enough (or, on occasion, not quite enough and, in those moments, one must simply decided what it might be about). Some of the poems feel more like short stories in verse/prose poetry. One such poem was /some kind of man/ and it might have been my favourite in the collection. It built the tense atmosphere so well and when it came to a head, it felt like a hammer came down or a balloon popped or something else sudden and disastrous that seeing coming didn't take the sting out of.
I don't need or expect to like every single poem in a poetry collection–just enough. And I liked the feel of a lot of these. This is the sort of collection I might come back to to re-read a few poems here and there. For me, that's a successful collection.

Some favourites were:
intro, when it is but it ain't, you don't know the half of it, q, the biggest tortoise in the world, what love isn't, body, not the end of the world but almost, some kind of man, true story, the stupid thing about it, mum, to the elders, poetry

I've really diverged from my original reading list but I'm actually pretty excited about this read. I've been trying to enjoy more poetry this past year or so as I rarely read it. Though I've got a long way to go, modern poetry is something I'm really loving! Yrsa Daley-Ward's words are absolutely captivating in this collection and confirmed for me that I should really be reading more stuff like this. Whether the poem was twenty words or two pages long, I found it poignant and hard-hitting.

Daley-Ward really represents here. She herself is both a POC and LGBT and it was SO refreshing to read snippets of her thoughts and feelings through these poems. They are vulnerable and honest, focusing on relationships, love, mental illness, fear and abuse among so many other things. The title of the collection, 'bone' is exactly right because each one reflects that we are all, above everything else, human and reverberates to the very core.

Not every poem was relatable for me. That's fine. I preferred the longer to the shorter too. That being said, I just appreciated the collection as a whole and KNOW I will re-read it again and again. Particular favourites were 'it is what it is' (an excerpt from On Snakes & Other Stories'), 'nose', 'what love isn't' and 'some kind of man'. They just really got me. Yrsa Daley-Ward really proves that you don't need 300 odd pages to tell a story here. I'll definitely be revisiting her work again!

Bone is the first book from Daley-Ward and in some ways it shows. A strong writer with an incredible way with words in these pages, her growth in talent shows in her debut.

Daley-Ward has a way of making short poems powerful and writing prose poetry that gets under your skin - some say art is meant to make the comfortable, uncomfortable and actually, this book in moments really is art, bringing to light a personal style of poetry that gets to you.

I love the honesty and the raw integrity of her work that you may not understand, but through those words she tries to make you and I think that’s pretty impressive for a debut poetry collection. If you like the works of Rupi Kaur, you’ll like this and will want more of it.

I got a free e-copy of "bone" by Yrsa Daley-Wars on @netgalley in exchange for a honest review! I'm still struggling to find a proper way to judge modern poetry: in absence of a proper metric structure, I feel like most of my judgement depends on the reactions that a specific poem has on me, but at the same time I feel like that isn't impartial at all... anyway, these poems were all very powerful indeed: I didn't "click" with all of them, but I definitely appreciated the voice of the author and there were a few poems that stuck with me - such as the one in the picture! Overall, I really enjoyed it, although I feel it will take more time to determine if the contents are going to stay with me or not. 3.5/5🌟

This poetry collection by Yrsa Daley-Ward is striking. It covers a wide range of topics, from abuse to love to exclusion and more, all of which draw on the author’s own experiences. It made me gasp, cringe, and feel sadness and hope, and pulled my awareness to so many situations I had not previously thought about.

“You will come away bruised.
You will come away bruised
but this will give you poetry.”

When I started this collection, I was unsure I could go on. It is brutal. However, it is brutal in such an amazing and raw way that it pulls you in. It is beautiful. There is such a feeling of honesty and openness, and you can feel the pain and personal realisations that Daley-Ward has poured into each poem. I think that it is probably not the best collection to read if you are new to reading poetry but definitely one to keep in mind for when you feel more comfortable. It is an emotional experience but do not be scared off: it is stunning.

I gave it 4/5 stars

Really wonderful, honest and relateable. Beautiful work, very accessible and enjoyable.

Book Review
Title: Bone
Author: Yrsa Daley-Ward
Genre: Poetry
Rating: *****
Review: As this is a poetry collection this review isn’t going to be as long as my novel reviews. For some of the poems I have read leading up to the ¼ mark in the collection, Bone is about how we see the world, how we see others, how others see us and how we love, good and bad. So far my favourite poems are Bone because it looks at how women look at sex and how it can make us feel in good or bad situations but you could also see it as the life of a woman of the night, Battle because at only four lines long it manages to say so much about body images and what it can be like to live with and love someone who thinks very poorly of themselves and Girls because it looks at primarily teenage girls but can apply to women of any age and how girls can be pressured by their peers into situations they don’t wont to be in and when they refuse how they can turn on one another.
Approaching the halfway mark in the collection I particularly connected to Panacea and Mental Health as these poems respectively give and insiders and outsiders view on living with someone who has a mental health condition. In Panacea it is about one half of a couple who has depression and they try to alleviate it by making love which doesn’t work, never work and in mental health it is about an outsider trying to provide comfort and support to people who are suicidal and they really resonated with me. Issue and Q are also poems I enjoyed as they look at things that wouldn’t normally cross your mind. Issue looks at the statement we choose partners who are similar to our parents and the person can’t find a partner with the right balance of both their mother and father and it does give off a strange incestuous vibe without even mentioning incest. Q on the other hand poses a question, if you could only marry yourself could you stay with yourself and the honest answer for me would be no. Another Tuesday looks at the length some people will go to in order to satisfy their own desires and wants and using other people to meet your goals doesn’t seem like a bad thing until you look back on it and wonder how you have fallen so far. Another poem that had merit was what love isn’t as it completely dismantles all the illusion around love and tells us what love isn’t rather than what it is.
As we cross into the second half of the novel Sabbath immediately jumped out to me because all the poems centring on women so far have been negative perceptions, but this poem looks at how women can use their charms to rule the known world if they wanted to. It literally gave all womankind a sense of power that some women will never feel, just reading it I felt prouder to be a woman. However, some kind of man was my favourite poem in this section as it looks at the male and female gender stereotypes and what happens when someone crosses between the genders, but it focuses on one wife’s journey to understand why her husband dresses as a woman. While she thinks on this a lot, as this is one of the longest poems in the collection, she never understands or accepts that this who Benny is, and she should be happy for him. With new genders in the modern age, it is still surprising how archaic some of the ideals are that people cling to today.
As we cross into the final section of the collection, I really liked New because it looks at how two seemingly very different people can work so well together when they complement each other’s strengths without highlighting their weaknesses. Mum is also an amazing poem because it resonated so strongly with me and some of the themes highlighted mirror that of my own family and it honestly reduced me to tears reading this one. Inconvenience was another poem that I enjoyed as it looks at how love can completely blind us to everything negative in a relationship and how we put up with some terrible things before we are willing to admit defeat to one another.
Overall, my favourite poem was mum as the relationship between a mother and her children is eternal no matter how bad things get but the way this collection looks at relationships and women in generally is eye opening, breath taking and everything in between. Highly recommended.

Typically, I really enjoy poetry. I love the way that prose is written and the meaning that comes through thanks to various literary devices. However, this collection just wasn't for me. none of the poems screamed to me and the various topics discussed, though clearly intended to be powerful, weren't always noticeable. I was incredibly disappointed with this book.