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My Feelings: Poems
A daring and intimate new book by the poet and memoirist Nick Flynn, "a champion of contemporary American poetry" (Newpages)
. . . the take from his bank jobs, all of it
will come to me, if I can just get him to draw me
a map, if I can find the tree, if I can find
the shovel. And the house, the mansion he
grew up in, soon a lawyer will pass
a key across a walnut desk, but even this
lawyer will not be able to tell me where this
mansion is.
—from "Kafka"
In My Feelings, Nick Flynn makes no claims on anyone else's. These poems inhabit a continually shifting sense of selfhood, in the attempt to contain quicksilver realms of emotional energy—from grief and panic to gratitude and understanding.
. . . the take from his bank jobs, all of it
will come to me, if I can just get him to draw me
a map, if I can find the tree, if I can find
the shovel. And the house, the mansion he
grew up in, soon a lawyer will pass
a key across a walnut desk, but even this
lawyer will not be able to tell me where this
mansion is.
—from "Kafka"
In My Feelings, Nick Flynn makes no claims on anyone else's. These poems inhabit a continually shifting sense of selfhood, in the attempt to contain quicksilver realms of emotional energy—from grief and panic to gratitude and understanding.
- GenresPoetry
103 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 2, 2015
8 people are currently reading
357 people want to read
About the author
Nick Flynn
54 books386 followersNick Flynn is an American writer, playwright, and poet.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
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November 20, 2023Some "Huh?' pieces and some more to my wave length, such as...
My Joke
As I put the pipe to my lips
As I lift the flame to the glass
My joke
As the smoke fills me: Say good-bye to
Nick, even if
I am the only one in the room
& by the end I was always
The only one in the room.
I always appreciate approachable poetry. Ivory Tower Obscurity with an MFA in Mimicking? Not so much.
My Joke
As I put the pipe to my lips
As I lift the flame to the glass
My joke
As the smoke fills me: Say good-bye to
Nick, even if
I am the only one in the room
& by the end I was always
The only one in the room.
I always appreciate approachable poetry. Ivory Tower Obscurity with an MFA in Mimicking? Not so much.
June 28, 2015
Nick Flynn has been my fantasy poet boyfriend ever since I met him in Seattle about two years ago (do you remember me, Nick? I was wearing a pink scarf with pompom fringe?), but I read several reviews that claimed this book was more experimental than his others, which made me wary. Having now read this, I have no idea what those reviewers were talking about. This was no more experimental than Some Ether or The Captain Asks for a Show of Hands. But it was more beautiful and raw and moving than either of those collections. Can I have about 500 more pages of this, please?
June 11, 2015
I am more than halfway done with this collection of Nick Flynn's newest poetry and I have to say that I'm so much more impressed by this work then his previous collections of poetry.
Not that I am saying that his past collections were not of great quality and great literary value, but in My Feelings poems, I see a new sort of Flynn in a few ways mostly in the risks that he has taken.
What's the new Flynn like? What are these risks about? Mainly I am speaking about his diverse range and pallet of poetic forms, not to mention his wild range of topics from the personal to the political and to the personal politics of so many larger images about so many topical things of value.
I can both feel and see such an interesting balance of portrayals of both the literal world and of the metaphorical poetic world of topic and themes of work.
I am rambling a bit more than I'd like to, but definitely check out this collection of work if anything to understand what years of both study and process to see what I mean.
I will update more information when I finish this book up....
Not that I am saying that his past collections were not of great quality and great literary value, but in My Feelings poems, I see a new sort of Flynn in a few ways mostly in the risks that he has taken.
What's the new Flynn like? What are these risks about? Mainly I am speaking about his diverse range and pallet of poetic forms, not to mention his wild range of topics from the personal to the political and to the personal politics of so many larger images about so many topical things of value.
I can both feel and see such an interesting balance of portrayals of both the literal world and of the metaphorical poetic world of topic and themes of work.
I am rambling a bit more than I'd like to, but definitely check out this collection of work if anything to understand what years of both study and process to see what I mean.
I will update more information when I finish this book up....
January 2, 2016
I was going to say this was the best book of poems I read this year, but the truth is it is the best book of poems I've read in a long time.
As I expect from Nick Flynn, it was not only filled with beautiful, moving, and very accessible poems, it also made me think in a "meta" way. About poetry. About feelings. About the truth. About experience and its representation in art.
Just when you think there's not much more that can be done with this formal art (and be understood), a book like this comes along and pushes things just a little bit farther.
As I expect from Nick Flynn, it was not only filled with beautiful, moving, and very accessible poems, it also made me think in a "meta" way. About poetry. About feelings. About the truth. About experience and its representation in art.
Just when you think there's not much more that can be done with this formal art (and be understood), a book like this comes along and pushes things just a little bit farther.
December 24, 2019
Poetry is kind of hard for me, because I know just sitting down and reading a collection isn’t doing it justice. So I always pick a few poems out to deconstruct with my creative writing class. Only then will I know if I truly find a deeper value in the collection.
But I liked this one pretty early in reading. It is personable. I feel like I’m getting to know the author. There are tropes-his mother’s suicide, failed relationships, his daughter-that really highlight the author’s humanity, his vulnerability. There’s a lot that gets left off the page. It isn’t a wholly raw text, but he reveals more about himself and these core issues as the collection unfolds. What you get is a piecemeal story, a quilt of recurring themes and symbols. Salt is mentioned often, in biblical capacities, in metaphorical capacities. Salt is clean, pure, sterile, dry, drab, a dust we can be returned to if god so wills it. It is nice to see this metaphor returned to in different capacities throughout. It is nice to see a poetry collection that is not merely a collection of poems, but is a collection of interrelated poems that come together to do something larger.
I’m going to share Aquarium with my digital identity students in coordination with a few other readings about mechanical reproduction of the self in the digital age.
I’ll share 47 minutes with my creative writing students, because it is poetry about teaching poetry.
I found “The Day Lou Reed Died” to be a highlight here, as it alludes to the ways we forge connections to seemingly unrelated people. How we manufacture closeness. Maybe I’ll share this with my digital identities kids too.
All in all it was a good collection. I bought it in Ottawa or Montreal several years ago and never got around to reading it until now, the year I decided to start either shitting or getting off the pot with all of these TBR stacks in my house and office.
But I liked this one pretty early in reading. It is personable. I feel like I’m getting to know the author. There are tropes-his mother’s suicide, failed relationships, his daughter-that really highlight the author’s humanity, his vulnerability. There’s a lot that gets left off the page. It isn’t a wholly raw text, but he reveals more about himself and these core issues as the collection unfolds. What you get is a piecemeal story, a quilt of recurring themes and symbols. Salt is mentioned often, in biblical capacities, in metaphorical capacities. Salt is clean, pure, sterile, dry, drab, a dust we can be returned to if god so wills it. It is nice to see this metaphor returned to in different capacities throughout. It is nice to see a poetry collection that is not merely a collection of poems, but is a collection of interrelated poems that come together to do something larger.
I’m going to share Aquarium with my digital identity students in coordination with a few other readings about mechanical reproduction of the self in the digital age.
I’ll share 47 minutes with my creative writing students, because it is poetry about teaching poetry.
I found “The Day Lou Reed Died” to be a highlight here, as it alludes to the ways we forge connections to seemingly unrelated people. How we manufacture closeness. Maybe I’ll share this with my digital identities kids too.
All in all it was a good collection. I bought it in Ottawa or Montreal several years ago and never got around to reading it until now, the year I decided to start either shitting or getting off the pot with all of these TBR stacks in my house and office.
April 23, 2016
While I certainly enjoy the books of poems that Graywolf Press publish, such as Albert Goldbarth's Selfish, and though Nick Flynn does comment on many momentous thoughts and events--both in his life and in the world surrounding him--I failed to appreciate this collection of work and wasn't moved by any of his writing until Parts Four and Five. There are some good things here. "Marathon" has some beautiful lines, and "My Blindness" is daring. Overall, however, I found him floundering more than presenting something profound and wonder if this is a result of an underdeveloped idea. Misquoting/misunderstanding biblical Scripture on which he bases several poems, the prosy synopses of films he has seen, poems about writing (a big "NO" in my book)--all left me emotionally nonplussed and slightly curious how such meandering thoughts could have been so widely acclaimed. On a line-edit level, the line breaks seem uninspired; sentences, more like, rather than evocative or playful lines with carefully placed enjambments.
Flynn is honest in his title, My Feelings. As a reader I pick up on where most of his thoughts gravitate toward: his mother's suicide, to be sure, as well as his daughter, and his place in this world. I would just rather see him eschew ultimately prosy attempts of being "clever" or "poetic" and really open up, show us his feelings, and let the natural poetry of those feelings surface.
Flynn is honest in his title, My Feelings. As a reader I pick up on where most of his thoughts gravitate toward: his mother's suicide, to be sure, as well as his daughter, and his place in this world. I would just rather see him eschew ultimately prosy attempts of being "clever" or "poetic" and really open up, show us his feelings, and let the natural poetry of those feelings surface.
October 18, 2015
I assumed the title was ironic. It's not. These are poems about a grown man's feelings, but the details to prop up the emotions are mostly missing. If I didn't know about the author's life from his memoirs, I'm not sure I'd know what was going on or I'd remotely believe what little narrative there is to be found. These are the sort of sad, dreamy poems high school lovers swap when things go south and they start playing the who's-sadder Olympics and playing to win. Yours is bad. Mine is worse. Na-na a boo-boo. Poem.
February 16, 2017
"We think the world must be broken into fragments, we think memories are dispersed throughout the brain & that the brain itself is dispersed. We think we began from a bang, but the bang never stopped."
This book is about grief.
This book is about grief.
June 9, 2015
Proving yet again the personal is universal.
June 13, 2015
My second favorite collection of Flynn's. Very similar to Some Ether in terms of content and style, in my opinion.
4.5 stars, close to 5.
4.5 stars, close to 5.
July 22, 2015
Can I live inside of this book, please?
April 25, 2017
The endless
white will blind you, some say,
but what is there to see we haven’t already
seen? Some say it’s like
poking a stick into a river—you might as well
simply write about the stick.
Or the river.
wow this collection is deep but full of thoughts!
white will blind you, some say,
but what is there to see we haven’t already
seen? Some say it’s like
poking a stick into a river—you might as well
simply write about the stick.
Or the river.
wow this collection is deep but full of thoughts!
February 22, 2017
One of our finest living poets. No artifice. Raw and always moving.
August 10, 2015
Marie Howe's review on the back cover says everything I want to say:
“From the first moment I looked up from a page Nick Flynn had written on, I was a goner: I wasn’t where I used to be; I went somewhere with him, into consciousness itself, into time, into a story so shattered that only poetry could begin to tell it. Here he is again, writing as if his life depends on it, using every trick he can find to carve the tunnel through the mountain. Words are what he uses; silence is the sound they make. Nick Flynn keeps resuscitating himself, and in doing so he refreshes and reaffirms the personal lyric as a crucial and necessary art. I read Nick Flynn’s poetry to feel alive.”—Marie Howe
I will add that one should never read the notes in the back of the book. If you subscribe to Eliot's notion, "good writers borrow, great writers steal," then seeing the (necessary) credits to other authors and lines in the back of the book shatters the masterful illusion the poet was able to construct from stolen lines. Flynn's poems are completely his own, but knowing his techniques is sort of like knowing how a card trick is done. It ruins the experience.
“From the first moment I looked up from a page Nick Flynn had written on, I was a goner: I wasn’t where I used to be; I went somewhere with him, into consciousness itself, into time, into a story so shattered that only poetry could begin to tell it. Here he is again, writing as if his life depends on it, using every trick he can find to carve the tunnel through the mountain. Words are what he uses; silence is the sound they make. Nick Flynn keeps resuscitating himself, and in doing so he refreshes and reaffirms the personal lyric as a crucial and necessary art. I read Nick Flynn’s poetry to feel alive.”—Marie Howe
I will add that one should never read the notes in the back of the book. If you subscribe to Eliot's notion, "good writers borrow, great writers steal," then seeing the (necessary) credits to other authors and lines in the back of the book shatters the masterful illusion the poet was able to construct from stolen lines. Flynn's poems are completely his own, but knowing his techniques is sort of like knowing how a card trick is done. It ruins the experience.
September 9, 2015
Nick Flynn's "My Feeling: Poems" dwells into the his personal feelings of loss and tragedy but often undercutting this with absurdist or sardonic imaginary or commentary. Flynn's consciousness inhabited in the poems seem to speak in many voices, often almost at odds with each other. This book does feel more stream of consciousness and intimate than some of Flynn's earlier works but that does give the poets a vitality that stems from a feeling of being invited into someone's personal world. Flynn's use of form, and particularly repetition, is strong here yet the artifice does not necessarily call attention to itself. A very strong work.
November 26, 2019
*3.5. Still not as good as Some Ether, I think. But, I enjoyed this far more than Captain Asks for a Show of Hands. I feel like this book is more like the stuff I fell in love with in his debut. (Also, though, My Feelings? That title is so sad after his previous books... Cathedral of Salt or Gravity or other poems would have made more interesting titles, but who am I)
February 6, 2016
My expectations may have been too high after reading "The Ticking is the Bomb," which I thought, was amazing. I read "My Feelings" in one day, and although there were several very powerful poems, I wasn't "wowed!"
December 29, 2014
Daring, raw and intimate.
April 13, 2024
I don't really love many poems of this book taken as a whole, whereas there are stanzas and lines that I underlined in awe. Such as the opening: "Here again/at the edge of what was, // the river held back/ by the stones it has carried." That alone seems to me an outstanding poem, but the title ("Belly of the beast") is most definitely wrong, and the rest (starting with the next two lines: "the knife in your hand [oh, lord, seriously? Who holds knives anymore. Knives are things of the past, and then:] / brimming"), meh, it's artificial and uninteresting, with the repetition (edge-brim, etc.) with which the emotion gets blurred, the piece turns suddenly into a series effete effects of fanciful cleverness, a deviation which deactivates the almost oriental -tankaish- flavor of the brilliant opening quatrain. And so on. Anyways, great material, you only need to dig it up (like the bullet that - is!).
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August 26, 2023I don't think I understand poetry. I read each poem in this collection, and I honestly believe that I may have gotten something from around three of the poems.
I don't read much poetry, I never know where to start with trying to read more poetry. The only poets I have honestly enjoyed are Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and Paul Laurence Dunbar. Maybe I just don't like reading white poets. I have no clue.
That's why I refuse to rate this poetry collection, it doesn't do anything for me, poetry lovers, or the author. I'd just be throwing a random star rating on this book. One day I may try this book again, or it might be put in a box and donated, who's to say.
I don't read much poetry, I never know where to start with trying to read more poetry. The only poets I have honestly enjoyed are Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and Paul Laurence Dunbar. Maybe I just don't like reading white poets. I have no clue.
That's why I refuse to rate this poetry collection, it doesn't do anything for me, poetry lovers, or the author. I'd just be throwing a random star rating on this book. One day I may try this book again, or it might be put in a box and donated, who's to say.
February 28, 2018
Really enjoyed this collection of poetry. “Tantalus” was my favorite. Had the pleasure of meeting the author and listening to him speak on Valentine’s day. During a Q&A session after his reading, he encouraged a group editing experiment on an unpublished poem—it was wonderful, and it really felt as though the respect for him and his respect for the amateur editors in the room grew and grew. Hooray for poets!
August 16, 2025
“A storm will come the radio says find a ditch / & lie facedown in it. Find your ditch & lie / facedown & pray we will all lie down / & pray after all there’s only so many places / to hide. We all need help the land is vast / & dense & full of eyes & so many flowers the soil / inside us is darker than oil lie down in it / & pray.”
a truly life changing collection for me. nick flynn i cannot thank you enough
a truly life changing collection for me. nick flynn i cannot thank you enough
November 27, 2020
I enjoyed this slightly less than "Some Ether", his earlier collection, but Flynn's trademark style is still evident here. These are strong meditations on love, loss, and detachment, told in sparse prose, with an innovative use of line breaks and parentheticals. Personally, though, I'm still more predisposed to his prose than his poetry.
October 8, 2025
Hard to describe but there is something so interesting in the language used that keeps me reading on, poems center around death, fatherhood, addiction but it's not really about one specific thing, it is more about describing certain specific feelings as in the title. Favorite poems: Ak-47, my feelings, the incomprehensibility
January 5, 2023
3.5. Some incredible moments and images here—amid a great deal of my own confusion. (N.b. this is not a criticism of the poet—just a recognition that I'm still not able to get a very good handle on contemporary U.S. poetry.)
February 5, 2018
Nick Flynn, got damn there is nothing like him.
July 7, 2018
Between two and three stars for me. There were a few poems I really liked and many that didn't engage me.
April 1, 2024
It’s Nick Flynn. Need I say more?
If you know, you know.
This contains one of my favorite poems by him : “47 Minutes”
If you know, you know.
This contains one of my favorite poems by him : “47 Minutes”
October 27, 2016
Some Interesting Ideas
There are some interesting ideas in these poems. I feel, though, that they are too sparse and disconnected for my taste.
There are some interesting ideas in these poems. I feel, though, that they are too sparse and disconnected for my taste.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews