I don’t know anything about poetry so don’t expect a structured review here. Until very recently I had never read poetry for pleasure, and my last experience was in high school. I did have favourites then though, Pierre de Ronsard and Victor Hugo for beautiful music, Guillaume Apollinaire and Raymond Queneau for fun.

Fast forward to the twenty-first century and one of my favourite people happens to be an award-winning poet. I have been struggling with focus and don’t really manage to sit down and read at the moment (renewed apologies to authors and publishers waiting on my reviews), but I figured a short book of poetry was worth a try.

It’s worth so much more.

I won’t pretend I’m unbiased—as stated above, the author is someone I love. That said, liking/loving someone isn’t a guarantee that their works will touch me.

In this instance, however, it did.

I only put it down so I could have lunch with my family. Had I been on my own, food would have had to wait, and that’s saying a lot—food being life and all that.

So, mind blown. Now, to explain why… Remember when I said I struggled with focus? I had no issue here, I was engaged from page one, from both form and substance. I want to quote a gigantic number of sentences, and won’t quote any since I can’t choose. I love the melody, I love the rhythm, I love the clashes and the interactions, I love the meaning and that it made me think. I love that it’s about time as a construct (which, as a neurodivergent person, I say all the time) and the weight of words, that it’s political and deceptively naive, that it’s clever and relatable. I love the mood and the way it left my stomach twisted, still twisting.

I was already impatient for kathryn l. pringle’s debut novel Cavendish House (yes, it’s queer) but now I can’t wait to see how this writing translates into a horror novel.

Video review: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9sJKjlI7aP/ (and a blooper you'll want to watch: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9ukE8PAbKl/)

Read all my reviews on my website (and please get your books from the affiliation links!): Jude in the Stars