The poems in these poems of witness are not so much descriptive or narrative as they are observed--lines that are like each breath, the narrator positioning themself as one who is reporting back what they see in their landscape.


A house is a little world / A State an entire world / And the world could have been / An uppercase world / If the hearts were not / Reservoirs of so much suffering

Unknown. There Where Its So Bright in Me (Kindle Locations 178-179). Kindle Edition.


Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me an advance reader's copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Nigerian American writer Chris Abani says in the introduction to this book that "[Boni's] language is not delicate or precious, not heightened or overtly elegant. These poems are precise, capaciously imagined, and presented in a plain language."

I don't know what it means to call writing capaciously imagined; the phrase seems to me like an astrological prediction in that it sounds good but could apply to just about any poetry the speaker liked. As for the rest of that passage, I snagged on the word "precise," because -- to my ear -- "precise" is just what most of the language in "There Where It's So Bright in Me" <i>isn't.</i> Many of the poems lean hard on abstraction; many lines sound, to my ear, like inspirational posters. "To share the joy and pain / Of those whose voices go unheard," one stanza reads.

But some lines are incandescent -- meaning they turn on a light in your brain. "Joy spills and spills / Across the threshold of words to come." "Life is a kingdom made beautiful by accident."

Boni is Ivoirian by origin, but lives part-time in Paris as well. That is to say, she writes in French. Additionally, her preoccupations as a writer are to do with experiences far removed from mine: although my parents were migrants (refugees, in their case), I was born in the US and have lived here all my life, besides which I'm white. Oppression Olympics is stupid and just pits people against each other (I'm queer! I'm somewhat disabled!), but it's certainly the case that the experience Boni writes out of is very, very different from mine, and so her poetry may well speak to many people in a way it doesn't to me.

I did consult my conscience about whether I'm just balking at being faced with that difference in our experience, and I think <i>probably</i> not, if I can go by my taste in poetry in general. I have noticed in the past that poetry written in French, a language I used to be fluent in, often flattens out when translated into English, whereas Italian or German or Japanese poetry less often has that problem when Englished, at least if the translation is a good one. But in general, poets whose work translates well aren't thick on the ground.

I would have preferred not to give this book a star rating, since although I read it with interest I may well not be the best person to evaluate it, but unfortunately I'm obliged to do so. I'll call it 3 stars and leave it at that.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Tanella Boni is a new (to me) poetic voice, but I
thoroughly appreciate the poetic talent that is clearly on display in this collection. These poems are familiar and yet not, close and yet resonant of a life I haven’t lived.