Reader, I

by Corey Van Landingham

A brand new collection from multi-award winning poet Corey Van Landingham. 


Reader, I draws its title from the conclusion to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre: “Reader, I married him.” Spanning the first years of a marriage, the speaker in Reader, I both courts and eschews nuptial myths, as its speaker—tender and callous, skeptical and hopeful, daughter and lover—finds a role for herself in marriage, in history, in something beyond the self. While these poems burn with a Plathian fire, they also address and invite in a reader who is, as in Jane Eyre, a confidant. Steeped in a world of husbands and fathers, patriarchal nations and power structures, Reader, I traverses bowling alleys and hospital rooms, ancient Troy and public swimming pools, to envision domestic life as a metaphor for civic life, and vice versa.

Genres: Poetry

85 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 16, 2024

Reviews

[Taylor Franson-Thiel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m writing a full review of this for Phoebe but ohmygoshthiscollectionisamazing

LOVE LOVE LOVE. HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

[Philip Kenner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gutted like a fish. Reader, I loved it.

Spooky yet tender. A terror and a salve. Sinister threads of violence, history, and disaster pulse underneath this patient meditation on marriage.

Partnership?! How awful. How incredible. Corey Van Landingham takes you to the slaughterhouse of being in love and ends up feeding you tender, tender bacon.

[Chris Vanjonack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Manages to be at once romantic, funny, and deeply real as it explores the inner workings of a marriage, all while interrogating the very concept. I loved this.

[Grace Ezra · Rating 4 out of 5]

“coyote open-throated smear”, for one thing

[Anthony Immergluck · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely adore this book. Every year, I feel like there's one newer poetry collection I can't help but reread a few months after finishing it for the first time, and "Reader, I" was that book for me in 2024.

It explores what people - particularly women - sacrifice and gain by entering and maintaining a marriage. Throughout, Van Landingham balances intimately personal details and emotional gradients with a virtuosic panoply of historical, literary, and theoretical references, and the result is the kind of book that will truly stick to a reader's ribs for years. It's often hilarious, often profound, and consistently surprising. Romantic without ever verging on naive. Piercingly critical of traditional, heteronormative marriage without ever verging on cynical.

As a general rule, I don't like poetry that sounds like self-help, and I don't want to imply that this is a book of marriage advice disguised as art. It's art - vivid, passionate art - and it happens to contain eye-widening insights about marriage. For what it's worth, I'm a man married to a woman, and I'm sure people of different genders in other forms or stages of romantic relationships would connect to the book differently. But "Reader, I" asks core questions that should resonate with anyone trying to navigate the emotional and ethical complexities of modern, romantic love. And like all great poetry, it doesn't provide any answers.

[Violeta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Corey Van Landingham’s Reader, I brings to mind a nest. Built around literary allusions and threaded with history, myth, autobiography, pop culture, and more, these poems swirl, worry, and bend around marriage from all its angles. Enjoyed it as a reader and know I’ll go back to study it as a writer.

[Maren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Credit to Corey (and Jane Eyre of course) because "Reader, I" is never leaving my vocabulary. Reader, I scratched my car; reader, I forgot to clean my bowl of oatmeal before I left for spring break and now I'm honestly scared to; reader, I daydreamed I was on talkshow again like I was fifteen (You get it). It's so fun to share both embarrassing and mundane moments with an invisible audience.

[Maggie Dunleavy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this! It played with rhyme and perspective in a really playful and satisfying way - I read almost the whole book out loud because it just demanded to be read that way.

[Bonisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best collection of poetry I have read in years. Incredible.