The O, Word? Sealey Challenge | Week 1
Reviewing Bherwani, Yoon, and Rogers, along with some bonus reads from July/August
Helllllloooooo, poets of the internet! It’s been a while since our last entry, as O, Word? has been on a little break (thank you, summer work commitments). But worry not, we are back just in time for this year’s Sealey Challenge. This podcast/newsletter started as a way to keep myself accountable to my reading practice, so it only feels fitting that I participate in the challenge for another year. So buckle in for some unsolicited thoughts on each week’s reads, and hey — thanks for reading :)
Before I get too far into it, it was expressed to me that it may be helpful to give some clarifications on my ★ ratings so they don’t seem so arbitrary. Of course, I’m just one guy, so the stars I give are bound to be based somewhat in ~ vibes ~ and should be taken with a grain of salt, but generally, you can interpret my ratings on the following spectrum:
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ — Personal fave! No notes (or any notes are small in comparison to how I feel about the collection overall). Does not necessarily mean the book is perfect, just that it is perfect to me! (And it’s my show, so I reserve that right!)
★ ★ ★ ★ — Terrific! Would gladly and willingly recommend to someone, likely to revisit from time to time
★ ★ ★ — Pretty good! I may not return to it as often as others, but overall the book is fine and folks should give it a shot to form their own opinion
★ ★ — It is likely that the book disappointed me in some way. Could be length, could be scope, could be not living up the hype — a number of things, really. I probably won’t return to the book, but check it out and decide for yourself if it’s giving what it’s supposed to gave.
★ — I cannot, in good faith, recommend this book. I think it is bad. Any praise it receives from me is an attempt to be professional and polite.
All that being said… let’s get into the reviews!
1) The Second Night of the Spirit by Bhisham Bherwani
Genre: Poetry (Debut)
Archetype: Speaker’s Journey
What good are bright marigolds/ scattered over a corpse? What good is rose/ water? What good is wild tobacco?
- pg. 54, "Hemlock and Hellebore"
Bherwani's The Second Night of the Spirit blends Christian and Greek mythologies to craft a new epic, an account of the love between brothers, beyond illness & existential frustration. The speaker oscillates between addresses, at times addressing the reader & explaining specifics of the brother's condition, at others cursing those who can do little to relieve his brother of his affliction, and in others accounting for the life happening in-between. Above all, the collection is honest, reflective, and earnest about how we craft stories about the ones we love.
Rating: ★★★½ | Perfectly fine book, I was touched by the way the brother was handled with such care, just don’t know if it’s a book I’ll return to
2) Find Me as the Creature I Am by Emily Jungmin Yoon
Genre: Poetry (Sophomore)
Archetype: Essay
To love someone means to imagine/ their death. Two a.m. and you lie awake in fear of us.
- pg. 12, "Love and Death Speaking at Once"
Find Me as the Creature I Am is interesting in that, in a book filled with what I would consider ecopoetry, the emphasis is not always on ecology, but rather on the wild world as a reflection of our own. These are poems of witness, ranging from considerations of human violence against other species, to questions of identity and community in a country that flattens identity, to the way we show and receive care. The book does not avoid dating itself, explicitly considering the implications of racist rhetoric surrounding COVID-19 & its origins. Not ending there, however, the collection asks us what beauty we can find outside our walls. How we can join nature in its aliveness.
Rating: ★★★★ | Very timely & conscious collection, author faces the contemporary moment head-on and urges us toward tenderness, a consideration that surpasses ourselves
3) Good Dress by Brittany Rogers
Genre: Poetry (Debut)
Archetype: Soundtrack
Oh, how it makes us casket-sharp,/ so flashy the camera/ can't bear to look away.
- Brittany Rogers, "Ice Cam, Little Caesars Arena, February 2023"
Rogers understands that sometimes we are most alive when no one can refuse to see us. This collection is adorned with beauty & audacity, a chorus of language that asserts itself in jewels and music. All of Detroit is dancing through this book, the city a tapestry Rogers looms with a nail tech's precision, a braider's deftness. What some think as gaudy is better understood as a kind of love that transcends our feeble notions of shame. Granny's voice reminds us home is a place they can't take from us. The ice on our necks tether us to our kin. Even in the dark, a city can flash its teeth, every nigga a star no one can snuff out.
Rating: ★★★★★ | There’s a tenderness running through this collection that is so delicious to me. Not once does Rogers sacrifice authenticity for humility, instead shining a light on everything that makes her loves beautiful
Bonus Read: This Tenuous Atmosphere by Maria Picone
Genre: Flash Fiction
Archetype: Speaker’s Journey
she told me waiting was a thing you do when you have hope, that she could not wait for me because she didn't have the knowing of how to wait.
- pg. 24, "Reunification"
Picone's collection of flash fiction, a space opera of identity & discovery, feels like a truly hybrid text, a series of vignettes guided by a poetic sensibility. From the very start, I am drawn in by the world (or galaxy) laid before me, of a space ship looking for a place to land in a country of ghost men. This collection makes known that the journey to find yourself is one that may never end, that all your leavings are opportunities to return. In you is a ship looking for its proper port. The first step to finding it is taking off.
Rating: ★★★★½ | I really enjoyed this collection, I just found myself, at times, lost in the narrative’s extended space metaphors, and at others missing meaning behind overlapping descriptions. That, however, did not damper my overall enjoyment of the book too much
Bonus Read: Orange by Noel Quiñones
Genre: Poetry (Debut)
Archetype: Speaker’s Journey
My father hungered for himself; I hunger for someone to consume me.
- pg. 35, "Nocturne"
Orange is a formally-ambitious debut that explores the mess & magic of childhood & adolescence. Grounded in color theory and interspersed with familiar artifacts of youth — such as the Magic School Bus, coloring pages, & connect-the-dots — this is a collection that colors outside the lines, asking us to approach each poem as its own unique experience. Just like with color, each person will see these poems a little different, but all will find a book vibrant with life.
Rating: ★★★★ | While I appreciate the ambition of the forms, I feel they are occasionally under-utilized or otherwise don’t reinforce the poem’s content, & therefore can feel a bit gimmicky, rather than complementary
If you made it this far — thank you! I hope you’ll check out at least one of these collections.
Same time next week?