Angels & Insects are Creatures with Wings

by Amy Jannotti

A 27-poem exploration of the feminine body, Amy Jannotti's third chapbook of poetry is a liberation, a transformation, and a reclamation. It seeks God in the butterfly as in the dung beetle. It looks to the sky from knees, in the dirt.

"There is something inside of you that won’t settle. In an attempt to understand itself, it grows wings. It remains nameless, even though it flutters, it soars, it menaces. Amy’s poems give you the experience of being both a newly winged being and also being the beholder of that precious thing. These poems will hold you in the afterbirth. They offer you divinity and its ugly underneath. One sip of my blood and you’ll live, says Jannotti, but this collection offers you a mouthful and a reservoir." — Angel Rosen, author of Aurelia

Genres: Poetry

39 pages, Unknown Binding

Published June 1, 2023

About the author

Amy Jannotti is a pile of dust in a trenchcoat living and writing in Philadelphia, where she received her BFA in Creative Writing from the University of the Arts. She is the author of An Angel Is a Kind of Ghost (2022) and Vulgarsweet (2023). Her poems have appeared in Non.Plus Lit, Black Stone / White Stone, Warning Lines, and elsewhere.

Reviews

[Logan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love a book that ends with a question. Just as “roses can have many meanings,” these poems carry a sense of dissonance through them, begging the reader to consider the nearness, the similarities, dare I suggest the intimacy, between creatures such as insects and angels; and where does the human body find itself in the spectrum of beautiful things? One possibility is that we are both beautiful and stuck in a state of erosion, until “nothing remains but to become.” We are both angel and insect, we are both “bone & jewel”. I loved the last two poems and the way they create this really well done, solid ending cast in reflection. My favorite poem that I’ve returned to read a few times is “Prevailing Submission”, a prose poem that rests near the end of the book, but to me sort of captures a lot of what the other poems touch on. The title of the book is a line in this poem, and I love the juxtapose of divine and bodily imagery in this piece. Highly recommend.

[Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This chapbook is Jannotti’s indelible third release. Within, she articulates the grotesque reality of the beautiful, what it feels like to be underneath, to be observed, to be unwell, to survive on terms borrowed from idols. These wings expand and become a creature and that creature becomes you. I found it to be both enchanting in ghastly, which is what I seek out of women's poetry. I want to be able to feel the "mentally ill girl" vibes from the depth of 2010 tumblr.

I've re-read this collection three times, and I will keep visiting it. I am even more excited for Amy's next release. Everything I've consumed thus far has been delicious.

[Lydia Bush · Rating 5 out of 5]

Earthy, spiritual, and sharp language with something to say. To the point in ways that make me glad to be a woman and glad to have a body. Speaks to injustice in ways that make you forget why you were ever afraid to use your voice.