Hold Your Own

by Nikki Wallschlaeger

In her fourth collection, Nikki Wallschlaeger further proves herself as a singular poet of astonishing emotional depth and formal range. Hold Your Own is a steadfast search for peace, self acceptance, and pleasure in a world that makes those basic rights an everyday challenge for Black women. Through her signature blend of sharp social critiques and tender lyric supplications, Nikki Wallschlaeger plumbs the depths of emotional experience with fearless agency and exciting poetic experimentation. She brings the public into the personal and vice versa, intimately revealing—like a livewire into the soul—a singular entity, a person, profoundly impacted by family, community, nation, and world. And she does it all through staggeringly diverse approaches to writing. Whether excavating childhood injustices in probing prose sequences or crafting formally energized declarations that could be just as easily shouted as sung, Wallschalaeger proves, yet again, the multitudes of the self, how it can flourish in the face of all that tries to stymy it. The result is exhilarating resilience, love beating at the center of incredible strength.

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Paperback

Published May 21, 2024

Reviews

[F.M Papaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hold Your Own wastes no time. From the imperative affirmation of its title, to the George Carlin epigraph and the opening poem How to Write a War Poem, Wallschlaeger outlines the state of affairs. It’s one in which feelings of helplessness, fury and desperation are as homeostatic as war, racial inequality and violent sexism. She’s clear, these “forces of evil” are fixtures in our world. But, the potent assertion being made is, so are we. We are not going anywhere.

Full review here: https://poetrysocietyny.org/how-to-po...

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 2025 I want to read more poetry. Hold Your Own was deeply personal and thought provoking and at times made me uncomfortable - which is one of the reasons I am finding poetry attractive. It’s in those uncomfortable moments where I think we might have the most to learn. As another reviewer said, I am glad I read these poems.

Favorites included Nothing, American Happiness, Appropriate Reaction, Alternate Names for My Children, Mommy, Violin, Possible Names for the Village Rooster, and Rogue Corn.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m glad I read these poems. The author writes crackling poems, that invite the reader into an electric atmosphere. She surprises and comforts and challenges along the scope of the book. She gave me a lot to think about.

[Shawn Aebi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A timely collection which packs a punch. "Appropriate Reaction" and "Nothing" hit especially hard while also looking in the mirror. Healthy criticism which doesn't draw blood.