i was originally interested in this book simply because of the word circus in the title, however, i was blown away by how good this poetry collection was. the interaction of the texts with the poetry was incredible, and it was very expertly crafted as a collection. it was at points devastating, angry, and incredibly smart. one of my favorite poetry collections of all time!

This book is a real, and often melancholic slice of life. The subject matter is heavy and difficult to read at times, but the poems are beautifully written. They touch on many social issues, like poverty, capitalism, and racism.

Than you NetGalley for the digital ARC. All opinions are my own.

Bread and Circus by Airea D. Matthews has officially ignited my love for poetry. With hauntingly beautiful writing and purple prose, Bread and Circus is a masterclass in poetic genius.

I received a review copy of this book from the author/publisher through NetGalley for my honest review. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

There is some truly excellent poetry in this volume, poetry that is personal and moving and expressive. There's a lot of erasure poetry using texts related to capitalism and finance and regulation that sometimes worked and other times was too poorly formatted for Kindle to be read as it should be. My primary criticism of the collection is that there is too much in it, and that it's not well-organized or very cohesive. Abrupt jumps from topic to topic or from one method to another can be great, and might have worked well here, but the poems seem haphazardly ordered, and even though Matthews presents strong pieces throughout the book, it's hard to understand why they've been placed they way they are, and what meaning, if any, readers should take from that. The over-stuffed-ness of the collection hurts it some too, as there are weaker poems included that don't do the author any favors. A tighter, leaner collection of the most successful, hardest-hitting poems would have served Matthews better.

WEDNESDAYS WITH DENISE: May 31, 2023

Bread and Circus by Airea D. Matthews was published yesterday by Scribner. This inventive, searing, and political treatise-in-poetry uses erasure techniques to transform texts by Adam Smith (author of The Wealth of Nations) and Guy Debord (Marxist philosopher). These work of these heady, intellectuals are juxtaposed with Matthew’s personal poems where everything is at stake. There is no erasure in the intimate vignettes Matthew gives us, economic hardship often at the forefront. There is violence within the childhood home, more violence as an adult facing the police brutality that haunts our present day America. Here is a sample poem:

https://www.vqronline.org/poetry/2021/06/ars-poetica-1979

Congratulations, Airea!

overall, i liked this collection! i guess i went into this expecting it to be a bit more…subversive? than it is? but it was still an enjoyable read. picked it up partially because the cover was so gorgeous and also because i was intrigued by the title; i loved the interwoven quality of the quotes from guy debord and adam smith, but i will say that the blackout poetry wasn't my jam. it read as a bit more disposable than i would like for the poetry that i was expecting (if that makes any sense). i never stopped at the end of one of those blackout quote passages and thought, "oh, how profound!" which could be an unfair metric by which to judge poetry, but to me, poetry is about feeling, and those passages were a bit too bland for my liking. my favorite poems were "etymology" and "-icity"

"Bread and Circus" is a challenging and melancholic collection of poems that explores addiction, poverty, anti-black racism, and trauma through the lens of Guy Debord's "The Society of Spectacle" and in a critique of Adam Smith's economic theories.

I was captivated by how Matthews plays with poetic form and formatting. The style, tone, and structure are diverse: from concrete and blackout poems to lyric poems influenced by biblical verses and the dialogue in Greek dramas. It is impossible to anticipate what will be on the next page. The constantly changing style heightens the heavy subject matters by removing any potential sense of comfort that sometimes comes with a more consistent structure. Matthews is so precise with her artistic intentions; every detail enhances the next.

As others have said, some poems, like "to tell you..." on page 82, were difficult to read in digital format. If this becomes commercially available as an E-Book, that is certainly something to be cautious about.

Thanks to NetGalley for this amazing poetry book for National Poetry Month! While I didn't always understand some of the poems, I still loved learning, the tone, and the creative way the author used different forms and methods to create poetry.

Poetry is such an open way to communicate and tell stories. I loved how at the turn of every page I never knew what was awaiting me. If anything, it also inspired me creatively to step out of the box and knew that there is no right or wrong way to write a poem.

I could easily re-read this collection to gain more insight and a better understanding of the topics presented.

This is a super smart and unique collection. In my Poetry Month column for Ms. Magazine, I described it in three words: commodification, division, legacy.
https://msmagazine.com/2023/04/20/best-poetry-2023-feminist-women-lgbtq-writers/

Hauntingly personal poetry and part prose memoir, Bread and Circus opens up about culture, addiction, and poverty in a raw and unflinching way. Matthews artistry of erasure poems and prose keeps you dialed in. While the themes are heavy there is an unwavering level of hopefulness throughout. A must have for any library or personal poetry collection.

My favorite poems are "Severance", "Penitence", "elegy for the moaner, 2016", and "-Icity."

During Poetry Month, I'm trying to read a) a genre I hardly read and b) poetry collections from authors who I feel are vastly different from one another in style, tone, themes, and background. So far, I've read [book:Goldenrod: Poems|56802114], [book:Pig: Poems|101021969], and this one, and they could not be more distinct.

Bread and Circus is filled with moving, heavy, personal, and cultural reflections on how individuals are impacted by economic and capitalistic structures. (To be honest, I may not have <i>gotten</i> that without the help of the book's blurb.) Really, it's a series of really intense, sometimes hard-to-read poems about Blackness, violence, drug use, race, abuse, and trauma. The author writes about her own family and friends: her drug-addicted dad who used to work for Amtrak, her drug-addicted best friend who died in a motel in Detroit, her depressed mother watching TV on a Serta mattress, her four-year-old daughter who asks her what the n-word means.

If you like poetry that experiments with different styles in one volume, you will like this. Some are more traditional poems in verse (there's even a Shakespearean style sonnet), some are poetic prose, some are a sort of blackout/highlight style of poetry in which the author takes sections of the economist Adam Smith's work and bolds words in it to make its own poem. I imagine this will come across well in print, although it was a little hard to read in digital.

Thank you to Scribner for the ARC via Netgalley.

These poems make you f e e l. You are transported into the moment through the words. I am really glad I got this ARC during Poetry Month. Something I really loved was the found poem style with the faded text effects. While some of the formatting was a bit difficult to read on the digital ARC, I am sure it will work better in the final print and digital editions. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

This powerful collection of autobiographical poems really penetrated my heart. These poems were so beautifully written , i geared up to a few. These poems reflecting the lives of many, something i believe all should read..

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the opportunity to read this before this release date.

This was GREAT! My only issue was with the formatting. It was difficult to focus on what I was reading at times, but that's a me thing.

Bread and Circus by Airea D. Matthews shows a collection of poems and prose as a memoir, story, and other things. It showed these collections from the past to the present. Airea wrote some that show how her and her family’s life going through.

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for giving me an opportunity to read this book.

I want to start by saying this collection had some gems within it. y=2x + 1 and The Broke Diet stood out immediately during the first read and the line about casinos not having clocks will stuck with me for awhile. While most of them clearly showed heart, some of them just weren't for me.

That's not to say they aren't good, just simply wasn't something that didn't resonate with me. However, that's not a pitfall of the collection, just a subjective opinion.

That said, I do have to agree that the formatting of some of the passages really does more harm than help for the message the writer was trying to convey. It was difficult to read, so it wasn't easy to consume.

Overall, I thought this was a solid collection that was cohesive, but not something I think I plan to revisit.

This is the type of book that makes you want to throw it across the room, in a good way. This book is hard to read, gut-wrenching, and enraging, which seems to be the feeling that the author is trying to evoke as she creates this conversation on the issue of inequity in America.

Bread and Curcus is a poetry collection that focuses on the inequalities in America as a person of color and the class system. It also analyzes the circumstances of these inequalities and tries to find a "why" for situations that POC face.
Overall, I think this poetry collection was very well-written and gave a lot to ponder. Some of the language did go over my head, but I do not have as much experience with this type of poetry. What I did get, felt gut-wrenching, melancholy, and uneasy (which I think is the point).
Some of the poems were hard for me to read due to the faded text effects. I hope the final copy is easier translated visually in a print final copy or the publisher chooses not to use it.
*Thank you so much Netgalley, Scribner, and Airea D. Matthews for providing me with an Arc copy*

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5361277998

This beautiful book is a collection of poetry that takes aim at Adam Smith’s <i>The Wealth of Nations</i>. Matthews ingeniously inserts faded pages of Adam’s and Marxist Debord’s texts whereon she bolds certain words or letters to create a statement. The poetry is weighty with tragic stories of poverty and drug addiction. The artistic merit of this work is undeniable. When reflecting on the numerous economic and social systems over the centuries, and the uprisings that created change after change only to end at this moment with lives described by Matthews, one wonders if there is more to the story, something that we might never be able to solve.

1.5 stars out of 5

I feel so bad but I absolutely hate the layout of this book and it made it unreadable for me. I wish the author/publisher would've mentioned the format in the description provided by NetGalley because I am someone that has a really hard time reading scans and light-colored or fancy text. A number of the pages are scan-like in the sense that the poem is an inserted picture but they are "aged" by making the image dull and making most of the text a light grey. A number of the poems are also structured differently than normal and it's fun visually but does make it a bit hard to read words that are diagonally descending from the right (like a "/"). Usually, I give dnf's 2 stars because of the potential that I don't see, but because it was caused by the intentional layout in this book and I could only get through very little I am giving it 1.5.

From what I could read before I got too frustrated, the poetry was really good. A lot of time these collections of multiple authors' works don't mesh well but I thought the works all flowed nicely with each other. Still, it was not enjoyable at all for me unfortunately but if you like fun formats and don't have trouble reading them I say give this a go. I think a lot of people will love this that just, unfortunately, does not include me.

Disclaimer: I received a digital arc copy of this for the purpose of reviewing it from NetGalley but, kinda obvious on this one, this is my honest review.