Category: Poetry

Book Review: The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

personby Amy Casey
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The Poet X

The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The best YA books capture what it really feels like to be young, and The Poet X does that with a hand so light you didn’t even know it touched you until you close the back cover. The book verges on metafiction, as it’s written in verse, essentially representing the notebook full of poems that the main character Xiomara carries with her everywhere as she comes into her artistic identity. Acevedo is so good at capturing the overwhelming crescendo of adolescence–suddenly we have to figure out about God and love and who our parents really are as people and what to do with an adult body and terror and pride and what we’re willing to risk ourselves for. Xiomara has all of that chaos right in front of her, and we get to ride along as she figures it all out, full of doubt but also full of power. A resounding celebration of the solace and strength that comes from writing.



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Book Review: The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin

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The Shadow of Sirius

The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I don’t know what I could add to the observation of the committee who awarded this set of Merwin’s poems the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: “A collection of luminous, often tender poems that focus on the profound power of memory.” Not only are many of the individual poems so special*, but the overall permeating sense of the book creates a unique color of emotion when read all together. Another of his reviewers identifies it, again, so much better than I can: “his personal anonymity, his strict individuated manner, his defense of the earth, and his heartache at time’s passing.” It is all that and more.

W.S. Merwin truly was a master poet, and there are so many places here to stop and say “oh”! in this collection, one of the finest and latest in his long, prolific career. If you love poetry, especially if you’ve been away from it for a while, I highly recommend The Shadow of Sirius.

*There were so many standout poems in the collection, but if I had to pick one: “Just This.”



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Book Review: Do Not Bring Him Water by Caitlin Scarano

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Do Not Bring Him WaterDo Not Bring Him Water by Caitlin Scarano
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Caitlin Scarano’s debut poetry collection Do Not Bring Him Water is a master class in exploring the rot of trauma and the dissonance of need. Each poem shows us a speaker who will not be held down, clawing her way to the surface to breathe, scratching everything that gets close along the way. At turns hollow, luminescent, bloody, and frozen, the collection’s fragmented voice is wrought together with indelible image threads—the white dog, spoiled milk, bowl and spoon, the ghost of a son. These graceful, violent poems are not written for the faint of heart, and you might end up crying hot tears in a coffee shop if you read them all in a row like I did. But most of all, this book shows us how to write without flinching–to tell the truth. I’m convinced that this poet’s real name is She Is Not Afraid. Caitlin Scarano is one to watch.

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