Category Archives: #poetry

NetGalley Review: Salt & Ashes

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I absolutely loved Thanh Dinh’s “The Smallest God Who Ever Lived,” so I was very excited to read “Salt & Ashes.” Unfortunately, this book didn’t resonate with me the way “Smallest God” did. I will not say I didn’t like “Salt & Ashes,” there were some beautiful lines and truly moving thoughts. One line I have already returned to several times says “Remember that only in the aftermath of the quake,/ You can feel the Earth move”

“Salt & Ashes” tells a different story from Dinh’s other book, coming from different experiences. I believe it is a deeply personal narrative from Dinh, and I appreciate her honesty and vulnerability. She reminds readers that sometimes we have no choice but to accept what life hands us: “And there comes a time when people learn/How futile living on pure imagination can be–” The truth is often painful to hear, but if we want to fully experience our lives, we have to listen.

Review: The body is where it all begins

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Poetry is an art form that is personal to both the writer and the reader; each has their own interpretation of the words and thoughts that are written. As a poet, I understand that readers may not necessarily relate to my words in the same manner that I do. That being said, I believe that readers of poetry should take something away from the poet’s words. Unfortunately, “The body is where it all begins” didn’t resonate with me at all. I can’t say that it is not well-written, and other readers might relate to Marcy Rae Henry’s work, but it was not for me.

NetGalley Review: On (Pantry) Stock & (Kitchen) Timers

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Jen Schneider’s On (Pantry) Stock & (Kitchen) Timers is a unique collection of a stream-of-consciousness essays and poems that you wouldn’t think would work but does in an enchanting, eye-catching, made-you-look kind of way. Schneider’s words are a collage of thought that walks readers through a maze of sensation/emotion/confusion/questing. This collection deserves a re-read to fully take in what Schneider says, but even after a second reading I found myself pausing, starting a page over, considering what Schneider wrote, how to interpret her idea. Read this book and experience Schneider’s creative art for yourself.

NetGalley Review: Murder Ballads by Katy Horan

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Murder Ballads by Katy Horan is a treat for fans of Dark Folklore and Gothic themes (that’s a gruesome way to begin a review, isn’t it?). I was already familiar with “The Death of Queen Jane” and “The Twa Swans” thanks to Loreena McKennitt. Horan included a list of recordings, so readers can immerse themselves fully into the eerie beauty of these lyrics. Horan includes some backstory to each of the selected ballads; this led me down a rabbit hole of reading the expanded stories behind these ballads. Katy Horan doesn’t just present her readers with a collection of songs, but a unique volume of true crime as well. Apart from the two songs McKennitt produced, I would say my favorite is the rendition of “Where the Wild Roses Grow” performed by Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue. I definitely recommend this darkly beautiful collection to anyone who loves folklore, poetry, and the Gothic and Romantic literature of the nineteenth century. You will absolutely love it. Be warned, though, you will spend hours looking up music videos.

Don’t Let Me Grow Cold

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Don’t Let Me Grow Cold by Nicole Kapise-Perkins

The teakettle’s whistling
is the music of sunrise musings:
when I was younger
I wanted to collect the stars.
I had a heart full of ghosts and strawberry daydreams;
I was a small-town girl with big dreams:
a carnival of stars would get me there,
I wouldn’t disappear like a glacier
waiting for summer,
instead I would become a wildflower woman.
The smell of autumn is locked behind my ribcage
like a child longing to be free,
bare feet on soft earth,
cardigan falling off a shoulder,
writing our names in the clouds to feel alive:
I am Sea Nymph, you be Woodland Witch.
Looking into a crystal ball
I see I am weathered by lost faith and heartache—
please don’t let me grow cold like this winter sky.
From the moment we met
I knew the path to heaven is paved with frozen tears
and haiku.

Feel the Night Change

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Feel the Night Change

   By Nicole Kapise-Perkins

We meet, we talk, but I don’t know you.

Your eyes a flash of blue, bits of sky. I don’t

know how it came to be yours, the sky. Do you have

magic, that you command the very elements to

your being? I would like to be

yours as well. In the night’s deep quiet we will lie awake

and you will rename the stars, build new constellations to

fill me with awe and reverence. How safe I will feel

in your arms, by your side, whenever you say my name. The

monsters will cower, dazzled by your sky eyes shining so bright in the night.

As our seasons turn, will your skies change?

Inspired by Elmaz Abi-Nadir

It’s National Poetry Month!

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If Halloween and National Poetry Month were in the same month, my utter happiness would be complete. Alas, I only get to celebrate my birthday during Poetry month. To kick off the Poetry Month celebrations, one of my own:

Love Doesn’t Rhyme By Nicole Kapise Perkins

“How are you, really?”

Just one of the many things you said with too many miles between us;

you were the sun of my sky,

and yet we never exchanged friendship bracelets,

never repressed words or scary truths.

My therapist asks me to talk about you,

how we kept moving without coming forward,

the silence between us,

the things you said at 2AM when you thought no one was listening

but I was.

Am I no one?

I often feel like my body is a graveyard,

darkness planted in salted earth,

Romans laughing as Mona rots—

can people change?

All of my ghosts say no;

they snicker and point at my inner child

as she walks on eggshells,

so fearful of dying summer.

Every new September

I wake up somewhere between now and then,

a half-remembered dream:

nectar on my tongue,

withering flowers and rotting fruit—

“I am not afraid,” she says, “I was born for this.”

Bathed in a golden aura, she burned in twin flames.

I wake in sunlight

with the realization that people I don’t know have a life as vivid as my own;

you, in your sleep,

used to recite Angel numbers.

We’re strangers again,

we shared a kiss that didn’t know it was the last one.

Your sun sign wasn’t compatible,

there were too many storms to weather

and you never mastered the art of finding beauty in toxicity.

I look around at the empty chairs spaced around the office like wallflowers at a dance.

“He smelled like a bonfire,” I say.

“He tasted like burned coffee. Love doesn’t rhyme. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Net Galley Review: The Lost World by Celia Drill

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Celia Drill’s The Lost World is some of the best contemporary poetry I have ever read. Her work is enthralling; she plays with language, creating images in the mind that are a kaleidoscope of emotion and thought. I found myself highlighting entire poems instead of single lines. I read her poems two, three times over, looking for meaning withing the meaning. Drill creates surreal landscapes of sound—I read her poems out loud, wanting to feel the flow of her language.

Drill’s poem “The Raven” describes the raven thus: “When the raven appears, he is never a bird; he is always a small, dark man. He walks with a cane, with God as his witness.”

A bird dies alone in the snow: “I take her home to forest’s solace, lay her in the dark earth beneath joined pines […] The forest is mourners holding hands. My dead bird recedes into roots. And unlike me, silent stranger in dimming woods, she sings from networked branches.”

Celia Drill crafts lines of such beauty: “Rain makes widows of the ghost pines…”; “There is no time, say the dragonflies, only color.”; “Sweetness spirals from the throats of violet, coalesces, sisterhoods of stars.” Her poem “Mug for Lapsang Souchong” is as graceful as the fox that the potter dreams of.

We know writers are artists, and in The Lost World Celia Drill embodies this ideal. “I am only a sparrow,” she says, “but I am voluminous.”

Goodreads Challenge!

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Slightly delayed, but we are still in January for about eight more hours, so…Goodreads Challenge update!

Last year I managed to beat my goal of 145 books, finishing at 152. This year I have set a goal of 150 books. I have completed nine so far, seven of which were poetry eBooks with an average of 150 pages, give or take. I have some hefty books on my planned TBRs for the next few months, March especially, so we’ll see how quickly I get through them. I am a fast reader naturally, but I do not just breeze through a book for the sake of getting it finished. I do take the time to read thoughtfully and make notes or copy things into my Commonplace Book. Many of my nonfiction books look like little porcupines with sticky tab quills.

My reading time will also be slightly reduced as I am setting aside time in the evenings to write because my poetry manuscript is not going to finish itself (though it would probably require far less editing if it did). How is it that something that sounds so meaningful when you first write it sounds like a four year old telling a story when you go back and read it a week later? I mean no disrespect to four year olds: my Finch is an excellent storyteller. His Mόraί, on the other hand, is a slightly off-kilter poet.

I recently shared a post about my February TBR, so I won’t review it here. My March reading list will be in the theme of Women’s History Month. Sister and I are expecting to have TWTCNS finished by late March, and we have chosen one of the books on my TBR to be our next Sister Read.

Are you on Goodreads? Let’s connect! You can find me at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12594094.Nicole_Kapise_Perkins . What are you reading right now? Do you have a reading goal for this year? Let me know. In the meantime, be well, and keep reading!