I couldn't finish. It was too experimental for me, to the point that some of the poems didn't make sense to me. I relate to some lines, but the overall, general idea of the project was disorganzied to me.

I will admit that once I spied Cass Donish's I initially resisted it. Still, I kept looking back at it and knew that it was a book I needed to read.

As someone whose partner also died by suicide, I am drawn to writers who find a way to go deep into the soul of loss, memory, and the intertwining journeys of what it means to live and love.

Written in the aftermath of their partner's suicide, Cass Donish's "Your Dazzling Death" radiates as
grief ritual, observance of queer place, and deep honoring of nonbinary/trans love.

It's difficult to describe "Your Dazzling Death" without somehow compromising Donish's profound and deeply moving words, equally embracing of light and dark and life and loss and the body's place within the universe. Donish writes with tremendous vulnerability and yet empowerment and resolution, the loss of partner and poet Kelly Caldwell just as the global pandemic was unfolding in 2020. "Your Dazzling Death" is elegy, a conversational lament and claiming of a new reality that attempts to make sense of the senseless. "Kelly in Violet" is a masterpiece grounded within the work of Uruguayan poet Marosa di Giorgio, presented in ways that both linger and fade.

There isn't a poem that feels as if it doesn't belong here. There isn't a poem that feels out of place here. Donish's work feels as if it's free-flowing, non-linear, and yet also present everywhere. Love and grief exist in one tapestry, Donish's journey feeling both stunningly intimate yet also universal. It's a journey that resonated with my own, a now long ago loss different in a myriad of ways yet possessing of common ground and a seemingly universal bridge.

"Your Dazzling Death" is that rare poetry collection that makes me want to immediately immerse myself in an author's writings. It creates a demand that I come to know better this Cass Donish and their literary world. This is a collection that both devastates yet somehow also exhilarates.

As soon as I finished "Your Dazzling Death," I needed to read it again.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC!

Conceived as a partner piece to the late Kelly Caldwell’s "Letters to Forget," Cass Donish’s "Your Dazzling Death" is an extended reflection on grief.

If readers choose to read both books (which feels almost necessary), I recommend starting with "Letters to Forget" because Donish’s collection offers the catharsis that book aches for. The poet dwells in sorrow, but they seem animated by the power of naming it. Where Caldwell’s book is often elusive and bleak, "Your Dazzling Death" is specific and—surprisingly—hopeful.

Let me explain—

I noted in my review for "Letters to Forget" that many of those poems wrestle with a world where there is no space for Caldwell, but Donish tenderly creates that space here. That alone feels like an act of hope. These are intensely imagistic and material poems, and they read like an open-armed embrace of Caldwell and all of her pain. They imagine a world with room enough for their love.

I struggle to find a good way to describe the book, but the first word that comes to mind is “symphonic.” The speaker often writes with a euphoric bombast, and it feels like such a conscious response to the self-erasing insularity of Caldwell’s book. These poems are not an elegy—they are a monument.

They are evidence that grief can expand our capacity for love rather than shrink it.

I originally decided to read this because I am drawn to narratives that focus on queerness, transness, and grief, and the description touched on all of those factors. I'm a pretty classic dude who doesn't cry at stuff, but within the first few poems I was reduced to tears, which didn't stop for the remainder of the book. Donish has created a truly devastating collection of poetry mourning the suicide of their partner, Kelly. Their use of imagery is exquisite, and every line ached with love and loss. I was especially affected by the presence of Again Street Park in the text, which is a place I had been to before when I lived in Columbia. Very haunting to think that I've unknowingly been at the site of someone's great tragedy and not known it, but I suppose that is true for most anywhere you can go in the world.

I was very touched by this collection, and will be seeking out any additional poetry I can find from Donish.