so many lines itched my brain with their creative flow and ability to perfectly describe all the little, drifting moments that make up a life in such loving detail

The poems were enjoyable but I did not find any of them particularly memorable. It was neither good or bad and felt like they could have gone deeper

This was an arc read. This book was lovely. The poetry was beautifully written. I don't read a lot of poetry, but this was very easy to follow along. The stories that were being told was gorgeous.

I was so excited to see this book thank you so much for ARC.

The multiverse is one of my favorite types of stories/tropes - I'm instantly drawn to it so The Sacred Heart Motel by Grace Kwan caught my attention right away. It completely delivered. The idea is a motel filled with fragmented stories, each room holding ghosts of love, loss, and identity - it felt simple but SO unique and captivating. Kwan did a great job taking you through these spaces, where every poem feels like a glimpse into an alternate universe.

Kwan’s writing is beautiful and a bit mysterious, but always rewarding. If you love multiverse stories or poetry that makes you think and feel deeply, this one is definitely worth picking up!

Thank you again so much for the ARC. I already can't wait to re-read this one!

Thanks to NetGalley and Metonymy Press for the ARC!

Personally, I find motels horrifying—the endless, identical rooms, differentiated only by peeling plaster or stained carpet; the way time seems suspended in the scent of stale cigarettes; the pulsing anxiety of inhabiting a space designed to be vacated as quickly as possible.

A good motel is usually one that isn’t memorable; how do you situate a body of work in a place defined by displacement?

This is the challenge that "The Sacred Heart Motel"—Grace Kwan’s debut collection—faces at every turn, but it is one that seems to animate the poet's work.

In the same way that one might overhear a conversation through a motel wall, these poems feel sustained by a kind of distant ambience. They are fragmented feelings that never quite collage into a clear whole. They are pleasant but often anonymous, not quite clearing the distance between voicelessness and polyvocality.

Periodically, however, a line or poem emerges with such devastatingly unexpected clarity that one almost wishes it were encountered elsewhere. If we’re sticking with the motel metaphor here, it feels like stumbling onto a new favorite movie while flipping through channels on a road trip. The excitement is slightly muted by the thought that you could have seen it on the big screen instead of a room with questionably yellowed sheets.

These moments made me admire the poet’s artistry so much that it felt unimportant when I wasn’t fully on their wavelength with the project’s framing device.

As examples, I think “Rationale,” “My Year of Rest & Expatriation,” and “Song of the Bowstring” are truly incredible poems—the kind that demand an immediate reread through the emotional force of their specificity. I instantly stopped reading to send them to people, and as I read through the rest of the collection, I kept returning to them in my mind.

The motel defied its form to become somewhere I wanted to stay.

"The Sacred Heart Motel" is thrilling. It's challenging. It's frustrating. Grace Kwan has clearly put a lot of care into this collection, and I’m excited to see how they continue to build on their high-concept approach in future work.

Definitely a poetry collection that will keep you busy, great for lonely nights. The sacred heart motel by Grace kwan will stay with me for months to come:

This was a very lovely read. Kwan guides us through the Sacred Heart Motel room by room, each one storing stories full of ghosts, longing, love, queer identity, and grief. The collection flowed very smoothly and I was impressed with the lush and thoughtful metaphor throughout.

My favorite poems are: "Glue Trap", "Notch", "Paths", and "I Love You. I'm Sorry."

The Sacred Heart Motel is a map for lapses in time, for the air between the dust. Poems in a multiverse narrative bring the reader on a tour of the motel, from amenities to rooms to back alleys, through the generations of ghosts and queer love stories, until they are left alone with the heart at the centre of the narrative. Music forms the rungs of this manuscript, from nighttime quiet to an orchestral intermission to a crescendo of exposed interiors. New poet Grace Kwan is ruthless and nimble, guiding us through the recesses of body and roadside space.