There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce

I loved Magical Negro so much that I was both excited to read this collection but also anxious that I would come to it with expectations too high and be let down, but I absolutely loved this.

THESE POEMS ARE SO GOOD. Bristling with righteous anger, and pride, and grief, and culture, and wit, and knowing, and precision. For a collection that name checks Nikki Giovanni (in "13 Ways of Looking at a Black Girl"), it suddenly occurs to me that there is a lot of echoing/embodying "Ego-Tripping" here, though I can't imagine Giovanni as comfortable dipping into occasional vulgarity.

This collection calls all of us out (even the poet) and all of us back in. There are no wasted words, no vague poeticisms -- Parker wants you to know just what she show more means.

Morgan Parker is easily one of my top-five favorite poets writing today. show less

2026 Edit
The only thing I want to add to my original review is that coming back to this collection after nearly a decade felt like coming home and finding my bed softer than I remembered it after a long, weary day. I'm forever grateful to Parker for this work and for her clear, resonating voice in the midst of the noise of society.

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2017 Original Review
This book is real. I wish I could think of a more poetic descriptor for this collection, but no word is more accurate than that. These poems feel real to me as a Black American woman in the same way Meshell Ndegeocello songs feel real to me as a Black bisexual woman. They draw from something at the root of 21st century Black American womanhood and speak to parts of that experience many show more of us living it carry but do not or cannot name ourselves. I look forward to reading more from Parker and will be adding her previous work to my to-read list. show less

"It’s mostly about machine tits"

(Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley.)

This is for all the grown women out there
Whose countries hate them and their brothers
Who carry knives in their purses down the street
Maybe they will not get out alive
Maybe they will turn into air or news or brown flower petals
There are more beautiful things than Beyoncé:
Lavender, education, becoming other people,
The fucking sky

("Please Wait (Or, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé)")

I don't read a ton of poetry, since it mostly tends to go over my head. There are the rare exceptions, of course: stories written in verse, and the occasional feminist title; see, e.g. The Princess Saves Herself in this One. show more But mostly I shy away from it, since it makes me feel ... not the sharpest tool in the shed.

That said, between the title and the cover, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé proved pretty much impossible to pass up. While I'm sure I missed out on many of the cultural references - I'm white, and this is a collection of poetry about black womanhood - and didn't pick up all the varied and more veiled messages that Parker was putting down, I enjoyed it all the same. I read it cover-to-cover three times in two days, and with each successive reading, discovered something new. Parker's poetry sparkles and shines and cuts more deeply, the more time you spend with it.

It's hard to play favorites, since each piece has at least one or two especially memorable lines. (To wit: "At school they learned that Black people happened.") But among the poems that really stood out to me are Hottentot Venus; Beyoncé On The Line for Gaga; Afro; These Are Dangerous Times, Man; RoboBeyoncé; 13 Ways of Looking at a Black Girl; The Gospel According to Her; The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife; White Beyoncé; What Beyoncé Won’t Say on a Shrink’s Couch; It’s Getting Hot In Here So Take Off All Your Clothes; The Book of Revelation; 99 Problems; and the titular Please Wait (Or, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé).

There are forty-two poems total, twenty-five of which have previously been published elsewhere. For those keeping count at home, thirteen have Beyoncé in the title. The Beyoncé/Lady Gaga mashups are fun, if only because I enjoy imagining them hanging together - or swapping bodies in a Freaky Friday twist.

I feel like I should say more but idk how to read poetry, let alone review it. There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé is a fierce, funny, and subversive collection of poetry. You don't need to be a member of the Bey Hive to love it (but it sure doesn't hurt). It's earned a permanent spot on my Kindle so I can return to it as needed over the next four to eight (please dog no) years.

 

Table of Contents

ALL THEY WANT IS MY MONEY MY PUSSY MY BLOOD
The President Has Never Said the Word Black
Hottentot Venus
Another Another Autumn in New York
Poem on Beyoncé’s Birthday
Lush Life
Beyoncé on the Line for Gaga
We Don’t Know When We Were Opened (Or, The Origin of the Universe)
My Vinyl Weighs a Ton
Beyoncé is Sorry for What She Won’t Feel
Afro
These Are Dangerous Times, Man
Rebirth of Slick
RoboBeyoncé
Delicate and Jumpy
Freaky Friday Starring Beyoncé and Lady Gaga
13 Ways of Looking at a Black Girl
The Book of Negroes
The Gospel According to Her
Black Woman With Chicken
The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife
White Beyoncé
The President’s Wife
Welcome to the Jungle
Beyoncé, Touring in Asia, Breaks Down in a White Tee
What Beyoncé Won’t Say on a Shrink’s Couch
Ain’t Misbehavin’
Untitled While Listening to Drake
Beyoncé in Third Person
Heaven Be a Xanax
Beyoncé Celebrates Black History Month
Earth Wind & Fire Reunion Tour 2013
It’s Getting Hot In Here So Take Off All Your Clothes
Take a Walk on the Wild Side
The Book of Revelation
99 Problems
Slouching Toward Beyoncé
Let Me Handle My Business, Damn
Beyoncé Prepares a Will
Please Wait (Or, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé)
Funeral for the Black Dog
So What
 


http://www.easyvegan.info/2017/02/13/there-are-more-beautiful-things-than-beyonc... show less

"I do what I want because I could die any minute. / I don't mean YOLO I mean they are hunting me."

"At school they learned that Black people happened. / The present is not so different. / I'm looking into their Black faces. / They do not understand that they exist."

"What does beautiful cost do I afford it/ Do I roll off the tongue / Is America going to be sick / Will fat kids inherit the earth / Will you untag me from that picture."

Morgan Parker shows you how to not take it seriously while taking it seriously. The poems were painful, joyful, clever, audacious, depressing, hopeful, fun. The poems have really specific pop culture & cultural references, a lot of it to do with black womanhood in America, so I didn't *get* all of it but still show more enjoyed them. show less

Ahhhhh this was so amazingly good!!

This is what poetry is meant to do! The intensity and consistency of the voice throughout this collection is absolutely compelling. Parker grapples with being a black woman in the United States in poems that range from odes to Xanax to imagining Beyonce as a white woman and all the poems coalesce into a reading experience.

Poetry is an experience. It has to be. The immediacy of poetry, the way narrative is stripped to its essence makes poetry more active than any other form of writing and Parker seizes that immediacy with an absolute mastery. I would recommend this book to anyone who thinks poetry isn't exciting or necessary. Parker shows again and again how poetry is incredibly relevant to telling show more stories and featuring voices that have, for far too long, been ignored. show less

Aggressive, clever, funny, shocking and real. It reminds me of some of Kathy Ackers most cutting passages. Punk as fuck, with moments of poignant beauty. An absolute joy of a book.

I won't even pretend that I understood half of this, both from a cultural context and from a general "poetry that goes over my head" sense. Yet I really enjoyed reading this. I found myself rereading almost every poem more than once both to figuring out the meaning and just to enjoy Parker's beautiful combination of words. I liked the one about listening to Drake the most (and I don't think I've ever listened to Drake in my life).