Welcome to the second installment of my Read Harder challenge! In case you missed the beginning of this series, check out my previous blog post where I explain what the Read Harder challenge is, and what this series is all about!
Task 7: Read an indie published collection of poetry by a BIPOC or queer author
Book Read: “Beast at Every Threshold” by Natalie Wee
April is National Poetry Month, so naturally I had to put the poetry collection in this update. On top of which, the poet I read from, Natalie Wee is both queer and BIPOC (born in Singapore to Malaysian parents), so double points, maybe even triple points? Just kidding, welcome to the Read Harder Challenge, where the rules are made up, and the points don’t matter!
Reviewing poetry is difficult for me — as my poet stepmother can tell you (hi Meg, I know you’re reading this), poetry is an important art form separate from prose writing, but my range goes from Shel Silverstein to high-school level Emily Dickinson; it often goes over my head. I even tend to skip over narratives told in verse, which seems to be a style growing in popularity. Part of the difficulty I have when looking for poetry is that the kind of works I’m most interested in are the ones with the highest potential to be a swing and a miss. Let me explain: Autobiographical poetry, people who speak from their life experiences, especially about race, gender and sexuality, can be so arresting when it connects. At the same time, what can be so personal and cathartic to the poet can come across to the reader as missing important context. The poem is clearly important, but without knowing the shape of how or why it was written, it lacks a certain amount of oomph. Which is not to say we as readers are owed anything, certainly not when the poet has already laid themself bare for us.
As I was reading through this collection, I found some poems and some lines that made me pause and reflect, made me want to write them down for later study. Many more however felt as if I was listening to a one-sided conversation (isn’t all writing a one-sided conversation, from writer to reader?) Poems were formatted more than a dozen ways throughout the collection, some stronger than others, and it occasionally felt as if the poet was consulting a thesaurus when writing. Obviously take this review with a grain of salt, and please judge for yourself. Continue reading “Reading Harder in 2024! – Part 2”
