The poet has won several slam competitions.
The poems are free of punctuation except apostrophes, though nearly all lines begin with a capital letter (the one that doesn't - on p.21 - could be a typo). End-rhymes are sporadic - e.g. "I trace a map of apologies/ Across the fault lines of your fingers/ And hope some amorphous ghost/ Of my meaning lingers" (p.13). I guess the layout helps when the pieces are read out. Many of them are "I/You" poems.
"I gorged on them so that when their season ended/ I wouldn't miss them so much", thinks the narrator in "Strawberries", which sounds promising. But it's broken prose about first love. "I was constantly comparing what we had/ To what I'd seen in movies ... I wanted my stomach to ache/ When you weren't with me/ Like an overexcited child/ Who's eaten too many strawberries"
The narrator in "The F bomb" sounds young too, "tired of shoving/ Every man and boy I meet into a box/ A box so small and stifled/ That they surely cannot breathe/ Through the cancerous green of my jadedness ... I would like the word beautiful/ To unfurl from my tongue/ As an observation and not an accusation"
There's no lack of imagery. Here are some samples -
- "I have been trained in the twisted art/ Of digging symphonies from aching gulfs" (p.24) (this puzzles me)
- "Your ears fill with worries that could drown a fish/ The worn shelves of your shoulders/ Stacked with the old cracked stories/ Of our sadness/ I am like so many others/ I love like an amoeba/ Single celled absorption of everything around me/ You swell me up to ten times my size" (p.26) (I like these images, and don't mind that they tumble out disconnected)
- "They do not know that blind hatred/ Is a cloak that some wear tentatively/ Only to eventually shrug it off/ While others wrap it round their shoulders/ Huddle under it" (p.29) (the imagery seems unnecessary to me)
- "His Playdoh heart has not furled/ Into a pulsing fist of fear" (p.31) (furled?)
- "Dot to dots are mere suggestions to him/ Round and menacing/ Like the garden peas he refuses to eat at dinner time/ Finite full stops on the ends/ Of prison sentences" (p.31) (too mixed for me, though I prefer this ambition to over-safe alternatives)
- "Girls swapped virginity stories like Pokemon cards" (p.33)
- "is there a heaven after all/ And indeed a hell/ Can either of them live up to all that hype/ I ponder it as if life were a distraction/ From the real business of oblivion" (p.39)
- "Though I don't believe in God or Heaven/ Or retribution/ I think of you sometimes/ Scaling the surface of the moon/ Laughing singing and dancing/ Literally and figuratively/ out of this world" (p.42)
- "The girl who prayed with the belief/ That truth and hope swing from the same gallows" (p.53) (?)
- "the stormy skies of his eyes/ Started to rain" (p.56)
- "I was a kid/ I was lonely/ I was lucky/ Pick your excuse/ Apologies in hindsight/ Are always conveniently profuse/ Cowardice comes in many colours/ A rainbow of regret over my head" (p.57)
- "If I were a song everyone would shout my chorus/ And mumble my verses" (p.59) (I like that)
"Flesh - an excerpt" is over 7 pages of prose. It has some phrases I dislike - "some distant peripheral horizon of my brain"; "sighing like a man who always sees the rust on a silver lining"; "You had a smile like a unicorn stood in the midst of Brixton market. Startling. Teeth like ivory, piano concertos tingling under your lips" - and one I like - "God had coloured Aunty Rahima in with the wrong crayon". I like the piece overall.
The book ends on a low point with "Personal Malleable Manifesto".
The last line on p.15 is the same as the first on p.16 - a typo? The first line of p.37 lacks a line-break.
See also her video.
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