47 pages
Published 2022
Read July 11
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
A jagged, devastating, gorgeous collection on queerness, trauma, identity, finding the sacred in oneself. I think this is best read after Emezi’s Freshwater; many of Everything’s themes build from that book’s examination of godhood and self-destruction.
Many of these poems explore birth, rebirth, and holiness, godhood and cool river water. Others dig deep into abuse, the violence of those we should have been able to trust, rejection, bigotry. Mortality, shrinking, inwardness all recur; bodies are scarred, broken up, oiled or awash in seawater or fucked in grave dirt. The soul is refashioned, built from scraps of hauntings and butchery and the clothing abandoned by those who hurt us. Heartbreak and sexual violence are no mortal thing, but a shattering of the godhead. “salvation” promises us “even nightmares / can be maps…”
A pervasive motif is what-if: what if we had been able to live our own sacred-in-themselves lives, what if we’d had support, what if we could have avoided the traumas of our pasts. What if love could heal instead of destroying. What if we could just exist, or not exist.
It’s impossible to pick any particular favorites — but here’s a running list of mine anyway:
“what if my mother met mary”
“disclosure”
“what if jesus was my big brother”
“july 28”
“confession”
“‘but why did you feel you had to kill yourself, baby love?’”
“self-portrait as a cannibal”
“what if magdalene seduced me”
“ashawo”
“when the hurricane comes the men protect their brothers”
“i was born in a great length of river”
“self-portrait as an angel”
“mourning”
“self-portrait as an abuser”
“content warning: everything”
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