Sherwin Bitsui

This collection was challenging as HELL, but so worth it ultimately. It's one I definitely want to go back to--it was my first venture back into poetry in a long time, and it was really a challenge to parse. Bitsui's poems are so full of images that it is borderline overwhelming and can be hard to follow at times, but it definitely sweeps you along even as it also jars you out of your comfort zone. The last two poems especially are so beautiful and shattering and hopeful and I really loved show more them. I recommend reading this but giving it a lot of time to sit with. show less

Bitsui's first collection bears out its title in exquisite form. Reoccurring images of fists, backs, seeds, and ash bear in them anger and resistance in the wake of disturbed or unrendered change, while nature, cities, and bodies bleed together in brilliant use of figurative language. Bitsui's images are startling in mythic depth and originality. I could not predict the path of any poem and so many cut close to the bone.

Bitsui's new collection delivers exactly what I wanted: a jarring, complex interplay of imagery and language. His poems wrap and weave in the most unexpected way but never stray from the wild heart of embodied experience.

This work is full of interesting images and fascinating juxtapositions of language, but in the end, I feel the book is needlessly complex and, in some ways, obscure. Many of the poems are filled with graceful powerful images of both nature and horror, but they come across as dreamscapes which are difficult, if not impossible, to find fully built meanings in. They often appear to be narrative in nature, but collapse into juxtapositions which are impossible to unravel, or else into what show more appears as little more than absurdity, though obviously treated with a seriousness that suggests otherwise.

Bitsui's work is attempting a great deal here, but unfortunately, for this reader, the attempt fails to translate into clarity....or any semblance thereof. I may return to the book for a look into the graceful language and images portrayed throughout, but the collection as a whole lacks power or grounding for me, as do most of the poems within. show less