A very personal and candid collection of poetry. She doesn't hold much back from the reader. Emotional pain drips from her words as she discusses rape, loss of a parent, and, divorce.

3 Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Guernica Editions for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book by debut author Carlie Blume is a collection of poems that at some points evokes a comforting sense of childhood nostalgia and at other times is an illustration of the raw emotions of a woman who has experienced trauma, grief, and the difficulties of motherhood. I thoroughly enjoyed many of these poems as I found Blume’s way of conveying difficult subjects to be deeply emotional and relatable. My favorite poems were “Dr. Golden”, “Invisible Lines”, “Restraint”, “Red Fins”, and “Phantom Milk”. These poems did an incredible job at illustrating traumatic experiences that are often part of womanhood and motherhood. Though these are obviously stories that are incredibly personal to the author, she was able to convey her emotions so well that I found myself relating to her though I have never experienced grief or motherhood myself. I especially wanted to point out a line from “Red Fins” that I still have not stopped thinking about: “There is a specific violence in watching something/ that was once in constant motion/ suddenly become still”. Blume’s descriptions of trauma and how it clings to you throughout your life were painfully truthful. The representation of this in the poem “Invisible Lines” was heartbreaking and I found myself re-reading this poem as it evoked such strong feelings from me.

Unfortunately, there was a significant portion of this book that I did not care for. Many of Blume’s poems seem to be lightly touching on a concept, but never fully exploring it. This is most apparent with the poems in which she attempts to explore feminism, technology, and plastic surgery. There was the cringy Tumblr poetry of “Unsupported Browser” and the weak attempts at feminist poetry with “Little Ashes” and “She Forgot to Pull the Emergency Break”. It was upsetting to see Blume make such half-hearted attempts at social commentary especially considering that these poems were sandwiched between other poems that were incredibly rich and so much more successful at illustrating the difficulties of womanhood and motherhood. I feel as though this book could have been broken up into two collections of poetry as it felt incredibly disjointed. Many of these poems do not feel as though they should be in the same collection. For example, the poem “Unsupported Browser” asks the reader to consider what Elinor Rigby (yes, the fictional woman from the Beatles song) would think about technology and this was not only incredibly strange, but out of touch. This poem does not feel like it belongs in the same collection as the incredibly heart wrenching “Red Fins” which details Blume’s experience with grief. Many of these poems felt like filler and it made me feel like I was reading the essay of a student who added a bunch of random sentences to hit their word count. Again, this was disappointing for me because I feel as though this collection could be so strong if some of the filler poems were edited out. Though this collection had its weak points, I still believe that it is worth the read and I am looking forward to reading Blume’s future work as I believe that she is a strong writer with a lot of potential.

Trigger Warnings: Sexual abuse, Death