Julia McConnell is a new voice of queer poetry. The collection reminded me, in its tone and rhythm, of Andrea Gibson.

Loved this collection of poetry by a lesbian librarian originally from (landlocked) Oklahoma, the poems are witty, relatable and poignant. An important voice against the backdrop of increased prejudice. I enjoyed the playfulness, the different styles from Tennessee Williams to Elizabeth Bishop and the love poem to her Jack Russell. Wonderful.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

In Landlocked, Julia McConnell explores themes of living in the South, queerness, growing up, travel, and self-discovery.

Favorite poems:
- Tennessee Williams Speaks to Joe Exotic about the Southern Gothic
- The Next-to-Last Lesbian Bar in Oklahoma City
- Damnation Isn't a Bad Word Cuz They Say It in Church
- Elizabeth Bishops Reads My Horoscope
- Notes on Sky-Watching
- Last Day of 37
- Books, Boots, and the Blank Page
- On Why You Should Change Your Life Every Seven Years
- A Brief History of Information

First of all, isn't the cover on this just beautiful.

So I haven't got the faintest clue what Oklahoma is like since i've never been, so this poetry collection gave me an insight into what it is like to grow up there. Whilst none of these poems really resonated with me personally, I think that they will definitely resonate with other people.

McConnell has a very confessional prose style, like diary entries, or like listening to her reflect. The overall feeling of this collection is that of home-sickness.

Landlocked is a beautiful exploration of what it means to question the places that comprise us. It questions how the places we are from shape us, and how we both celebrate and challenge this shaping. The poems are a dance between love and loss, community and isolation, joy and sadness. Ultimately, these poems are a personal exploration of life in a time of social uncertainty, when everyone feels adrift and questioning. In true poetic form, one path that Landlocked presents is that we all need to find the "poem [we] need to write."

These poems perfectly capture the mess of living in Oklahoma when you don’t fit the stereotypes of an Oklahoman. The push-pull of wanting to leave the state for your own peace and opportunity while also lamenting that your home isn’t ever going to change. I don’t know a lot about poetry, but I do know about living in Oklahoma. The imagery in this books captures the contradictions beautifully.

If your personal values don’t match that of the state you live in. If you’ve ever dreamed of moving away from your hometown. If you’ve ever escaped your home state but still feel a little grief over that decision, McConnell’s poetry will resonate with you.

I really like the cover of Landlocked and it fits very well with the poems actually. It gives off a distinct vibe or so to say. The best part is definitely when McConnell refers to places in a nonchalant manner and in a way links us to them by doing so. Sometimes the rhythm felt off though and I lost the grip of the poem. At times then, it was there like a good friend and I liked the librarian poem the most, since I'm a librarian too. Somehow it pinpoints the situation so well, I must agree.

The ones with the dog felt off though and I love dogs, I used to have one too. The feeling of them was different and somehow passive aggressive. The collection is quite coherent though, all in all. There's some lgbtq+ content too, but it's subtle and only a grace note. Perhaps I wanted more depth and togetherness in the poems. Something to crawl on my skin. Thus three stars.

Thank you to Netgalley for the advanced reader copy.

This collection was gorgeous and so well-put together. The vignettes and the raw style of writing really made me enjoy the journey that the author wants to take us on through a sort of Midwestern landscape. The honesty that each word has is simply beautiful and cuts right to the heart. I read it in one sitting.

"Hope is a firefly constantly going out and lighting up again."

I was really wowed by Landlocked! It's a beautiful collection of poetry that reeled me in so slowly that I didn't realized I was hooked until the end. McConnell writes about her hometown in Oklahoma with yearning and resentment that battle each other so spectacularly. It's like a love letter and a break up letter all in one.

My favorite poems are: "Tennessee Williams Speaks to Joe Exotic about the Southern Gothic", "Damnation Isn't a Bad Word Cuz They Say It in Church", and "A Brief History of Information."

these poems have moments of real clarity and some great lines, but as a collection it struggles to hold itself together.

I loved this poetry collection, Julia McConnell’s debut, which traverses and rhapsodizes on the oft-maligned, landlocked state of Oklahoma. The poems are urban and rural, reverent and irreverent. We read elemental environments in the heat of summer, or alternatively “The Next-to-Last Lesbian Bar in Oklahoma City” (I learned from @caftan4caftan’s Moby Dyke that Oklahoma has three lesbian bars in the state, more than most to all). Serious topics range from the personal (coming out) to the political (the botched execution of Clayton Lockett in the stunning “Work: A Ghazal for Oklahoma”). Other poems riff on platitudes, like advice to change your life every seven years; a particularly goofy poem is an ode to McConnell’s dog, “Molly Marlova Magdalena McConnell.”

McConnell’s voice really stands out to me. Never too heavy, but rooted in specificity; her Oklahoma really comes alive. It’s a state she loves in all its complexity, even if it’s sometimes embarrassing or gruesome. “My Ex-Girlfriend, Oklahoma” is a great title and a great poem. McConnell herself is complex, too—she’s an Oklahoman, a queer woman, a dog person, a traveler, a librarian—but an uncomplicated delight as a speaker and a poet.

I really wanted to love this one but unfortunately it just didn’t do it for me - I’m sorry!

Quite a few poems in this book had a lot of Big Clever Words that just went straight over my head. This might just be a me problem, but for that reason the poetry didn’t flow for me.

That being said I did enjoy the subtle exploration of queerness, and I think it worked really well in a poetry format.

Landlocked by Julia McConnell is a stunning poetry collection that pays homage to Oklahoma, in the sense that McConnell captures both what made this place home and how it became the place which made her realise she did not belong there.

McConnell's writing explores the complexities tied into place, particularly places of our formative years, and brilliantly demonstrates the dichotomy she experienced in Oklahoma. It was a place which nurtured with a thriving and comforting natural landscape, and it was a place of prejudice, racism, ignorance and homophobia. The speaker's torn response is palpable with every piece. There is no doubt of McConnell proving how something can be both cherished and let go.

"Exist in the in-between / enter a world unknown. unclipped word wings moving inside, / aware of the many angles of truth." [Graciela Says]

Particular favourites of mine were poems like 'An Education', which swiftly revealed the holes in our history, it being written by the victors and taught by those in power, being juxtaposed with poems like 'Boundless' which revealed our need for belonging, for home, and for the courage to discover it ourselves if the place we always called home is no longer a place to survive.

"Home is a loose tooth. / You still can't tell by looking / if the tide is coming in or going out." [On Why You Should Change Your Life Every Seven Years]

Finally, McConnell's poetic voice is also very refreshing, with the linguistic prowess of a writer well-versed in their craft, alongside a confessional tone which places the person, their thoughts and feelings, at the centre of every piece.

A compassionate yet critical ode to Oklahoma, McConnell depicts both the good, the bad, and the ugly within their poetry collection "Landlocked". True to the work's description, the contradictions of homophobia existing alongside a strong queer subculture are represented within their poetry, as well as the duality of a non-religious uprising within a deeply Christian community ("Damnation Isn't A Bad Word Cuz They Say It in Church"). Some of the works fell flat for me personally, although I loved "Elizabeth Bishop Reads My Horoscope" and "The Land We Belong To". My favorite was probably "Love Song". Landlocked boldly reckons with an uncomfortable legacy, refusing to dismiss the notoriously red state out of hand or providing credence to reactionary nationalism, but rather holistically portraying a multifaceted reality.

NetGalley-specific note: Due to formatting, this is better read on the NG app than on Kindle.

"Take us with you say the boots
lined up against the bedroom wall.
Take us through your red dirt path
spring puddles, yellowed grass,
dog shit, it doesn't matter." (46*)

This is a love letter and a breakup letter, both written to Oklahoma. Oklahoma, where the land is harsh and the love is fierce and for McConnell it will always be home—but where, perhaps, she cannot stay and cannot truly return.

I read these poems spread out over a couple of weeks, because, whatever else, they're clearly not here to all be gobbled down in one go. With nods to Elizabeth Bishop, Audre Lord, and other standouts of the genre, it's impossible to read these as anything other than *smart*, as poems written not just by someone who knows how to wrangle language but someone who has done a great deal of thinking about time and place and news and history, Fernweh and Heimweh and home.

I'm reminded a little of the book "Prairie Silence", though that's likely more context than style. But I love the imagery here, the reverence and irreverence applied to this place I've never been but McConnell feels such close ties to.

"If this is the end let them not say
I should have wandered
so far from home
to spend the end like this
untethered in a city searching
for colored lights and a little joy.

If this is the end the pictures came out blurry." (71)

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotations are from an ARC and may not be final.

An absolutely gorgeous collection! This bridges the land between Midwestern and Southern Gothic, and I loved the overt and rich metaphors. Queerness is entwined throughout every environment and description in the most beautiful way, with intense humanity and honesty.

Unapologetic and brutal in its honesty, Landlocked holds a mirror and dares you to see anything except exactly what hurts the worst: prolonged longing and sitting out of place until both burrow like a splinter.

Through the wild, wide vistas and intimate vignettes, McConnel’s work is immediate and visceral, keeping readers grounded with cutting, insightful language. There is something both carnal and spiritual happening within Landlocked and there’s no safety net: you see and feel so deeply, it can’t be ignored.

A staggering collection, McConnel’s Landlocked will be a steadfast favorite that follows you around long after you’ve put it down.

Thank you NetGalley, Michigan State University Press, and Wheelbarrow Books for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wheelbarrow Books for providing me with an ARC.

Julia McConnell’s newest collection of poetry, Landlocked, explores both queerness and place, creating scenes of Oklahoma and exploring ideas of home and belonging.

I really enjoyed the poetry in this collection, and I loved its exploration of queerness. I know absolutely nothing about Oklahoma and have never been there, so I think some of the nuances went over my head as a non-native, but it wasn’t a pre-requisite to enjoy the lyricism and word choices.

The poem ‘Work: A Ghazal for Oklahoma’ intrigued me as I had never heard of the execution of Clayton Lockett before, and the form and use of enjambment worked really well. ‘The Land We Belong To’ worked really well with the constant repetition of ‘Oklahoma’ throughout, and again felt like an education to me as someone unfamiliar with the place. My favourites, however, were ‘Damnation Isn’t a Bad Word Cuz They Say It in Church’ and ‘Slip ‘N Slide’ because of the everyday, the mundanity, the ordinary and average lives being portrayed. ‘Grandma Minnie’s Wedding Band’ surprised me as it was told from the perspective of the wedding ring itself and I love unconventional narratives.

Overall, a really solid collection of poetry with some stand out poems that I will definitely come back to again.

I recieved an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I vibe with contemporary poetry, I really do, but it relies on formatting, and this ebook was a whole mess. Caps on the middle of sentences, no line breaks for when a new poem would start, page numbers chopping off sentences in half, which drew me away from the picture it was trying to paint. That, and a few grammar mistakes that weren't because of the poetic writing but because of carelessness and not reading stuff a few times over. "Look at sky" was the stupidest one that comes to mind. It's a shame because I was really interested in the subject matter, but sadly it still needs more polishing, even if it's an ARC.

McConnell manages to expertly capture the limbo state of being "just satified" in one's life. With beautiful prose and proetry, the state of Oklahoma comes to life in the space between identity, longing to leave, and wanting to stay. The poems read easy and the flow in the structure makes for perfect beginner-poetry, especially because it combines so well with the prose. The imagery McConnell produce is stunning and tinted in melancholy that really explores that boundary of longing and homseickness.