Rummage

by Ife-Chudeni A. Oputa

Winner of the 2015 Little A Poetry Contest. A journey through girlhood, self-discovery, and the little acts of violence we inflict on one another. In an astounding debut poetry collection, Cave Canem, Callaloo , and Lambda Literary fellow Ife-Chudeni A. Oputa presents a relentless but refined portrait of one young woman’s journey toward self-discovery. Her poems explore the eternal themes of the human condition—nature, origin, shame, identity, desire, mortality—with sensitivity and specificity. They illuminate and interrogate the ways that her characters inflict and experience pain, ultimately revealing how we must all face our shame in order to grow. No voice is blameless; no person is exempt. Divided into four sections, the collection reads as a life cycle of emotional girlhood and sexuality, trauma, relationships, and grief. Rummage is a wildly courageous and lyrical book full of music, metaphor, and the power of memory.

Genres: Poetry, Audiobook, LGBT, Coming Of Age, Lesbian, Queer

96 pages, Paperback

First published August 29, 2017

Reviews

[Darkowaa]

Nah... Can't even rate this. Some poems were pretty deep in the exploration of sexuality & sexual fluidity. But majority were too abstract for me to appreciate. *shrug*

[Mike Yamada · Rating 2 out of 5]

No shade on this one, just really wasn't my thing.

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poetry

I didn't like this or understand it. I understand poetry if it is simple without hidden meanings but not this. It just confused me.

[Ruby Scupp · Rating 2 out of 5]

Favorite poems:

- "We are sitting around my shame"
- "Creation"
- "Analog"
- "After the Hour" (:00, :10)
- "Baptism"
- "The Prophet Gets It Wrong"
- "The Prophet Wants to Atone"
- "All the Dead Call You Friend"


Favorite lines:

- "I am everyone's favorite answer. / They are delighted with my shame. I win the round, / advance my game piece on the board, and am still in last place."

- "We shattered the mirrored walls into glitter, / let the slivers rip our retinas, scattering light"

- "Let them drill / through my jaw to my chest. Let them root / their way into my heart. Let them test the valves / and pistons and diagnose nothing. Let them find / nothing. Let there be nothing wrong with this heart."

- "friend, you know the body's love / affair with death, you know what it is / to hold a cadaver heart / in your chest"

- "Why haven't we learned yet - / that air this thin feeds on the lungs, / that sleep will find us choking, that night is no less menacing / when are hands are tensed in harmony with the moon and / owlsong."

- "girl manifest: hours dressed in her face"

- "Lack is everywhere suddenly; I can see it / each day collecting in the thick pulp of the veins / I knead, the muscles a seizing wasteland."

- "I feel time fraying from the middle / of my hands, which are soon dressed / in its tangles."

- "A base / organ, the eye - always a doubled vision, fogged / and unfocused, dust-smeared window / into an upturned world"

- "Through the phone, I hear her close a window / and I miss the benevolence of wind, how / it always contends with the silence."

- "Wind floats her back to me; the still night / gone, like the tear ducts I locked in her grip. A girl / dried out and beautiful and unkind / so long ago, when I was a laughter cracked / beneath her and she an absent sadness, an unnamed / haunt, the specter of every discomfort"

- "Give yourself up, you become as a fog, / as the last wisp of heat from water."

- "Think of purple spreading the sky like oil, / oil coating tongues like praise. / Praise, a fire in the bones, unhinging / joints until the body cannot stand / or open its mouth to scream."

- "I have / always been content to make my own / atonement, to give myself over to the flame, / to make of myself a sweet aroma."

- "It must be what rattles / just behind my voice when I let myself forget / how much of me does not belong to me; / when I start to ask myself what happens / when there's nothing left to give, / when I am all that is left to give?"

- "Everything wants to give / itself to black."

[Ronald Hopkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this through a goodreads giveaway and I've been flipping through it repeatedly and it somehow finds me in those moments where I really need it. I know this is gendered towards women but I honestly connect with a lot of the moments that were my lived experiences for example Kwansaba for my mother was something I experienced as well as We are sitting around discussing my shame among other really well written and deeply thoughtful poems. Although some of the poems I didn't connect with because either it's not an experience I've had yet or will have or because I just didn't have the mental fortitude to reach where it was going I still enjoyed the few that I really connected with.

I think what's great about poetry is that it finds you in dark places and moments and allows you to understand that you aren't alone in experiencing these things.

P.S: I set the date to Nov. 6 but I plan on going through it throughout the year and finding things that I connect with at moments when I really need it.

[Josie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Rummage" is lovely, harsh and evocative in both creating vivid, sometimes stark pictures of the characters and conveying those characters’ struggles, love, confusion and so much more. To me, each poem has such an engaging rhythm and sense of movement it invites me in and makes me feel a gamut of emotions, connection and congruity with Oputa’s words. Even when I didn’t completely understand the metaphor or symbolism, I didn’t find myself lost or frustrated, I found myself lost in a way that makes me want to dive back and delve into its mysteries and obscurities. The poems deal with some heavy topics but with such a grace and knowledgeable touch in their dynamics, it’s hard not to feel an emotional lightness and catharsis.

Some of my favorites include: Ode to Shame, What the Muse Might Say If I Let Her Speak, the Portrait of Memory trio, We Are Sitting Around My Shame, After the Hour, How Not to Itch, and the entire Lessons on the Body sequence as it prodded my biologist heart. So good!

[Weatherly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure if I really got the full experience of this, because I listened to the audiobook instead of reading, but it was just ok. I got on a little bit of a poetry kick this year, and I think I like the more wide-shot, narrative poetry vs the immediacy of personal poetry (I clearly don't know how to speak about poetry exactly?) There was a poem at the end that really struck me, and several images and sentences were beautiful, but it wasn't something that I connected with deeply. I would be interested to see how the experience differs reading it vs listening, though. I think I'm not able to fully immerse myself in and understand poetry while listening to it.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

"What is my waist, but her abandoned
post."

And honestly now that I think about it I am very glad that no one knows when its especially moist cause there are a few in the older generation that I would hate to make uncomfortable because I have a massive crush. No need at all to make it more horrifically awkward with a visible boner.

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful Poetry


Gorgeous, cutting work. I can't describe in a review, I highly recommend for those who appreciate poetry. Very truth depth in words that left me feeling reminiscent. I was absolutely mesmerized with many of her passages.

[Kayla Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really great collection of poetry. The author really delves into race and gender and sexuality and the intersectionality of all of those. The poems painted some incredible imagery and had me thinking about so many things that people experience.

[ade · Rating 5 out of 5]

oop watch out I’m getting into poetry! and what a fantastic way to start! this book was beautiful, haunting, thought provoking, and just …. Written so well, in a way I immediately tried to replicate and could not. How do poets write poetry?! Asking for a friend

[Kat Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

*giveaway winner*

Thought Provoking, Stays with you long after you have read them. Many are definite rereads

[Sharon Heck · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this in a Goodreads Giveaway - thank you. I do not read poetry very often and I likely do not take the time it deserves to ponder the words deeply. However, this book does provoke strong feelings and thoughts. I have reflected back on it in the days since I have finished this book. The book is short enough to allow for multiple readings which help to reveal the layers of meaning.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

good poetry that has disturbing dark quality to it.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disturbing at moments with incredible written skill and powerful messages.

[Maryann mayton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this and it is a very provoking book of poems kind of sticks with ya after you read it.

[Jesse]

Every cell flakes a spark. There is no kindling
like a body bared.

[Maddy Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Every cell flakes a spark. There is no kindling/like a body bared.”

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous imagery. Sinister, honest, queer, cyclical.

[Tena · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this kindle edition in a GOODREADS giveaway.

[Theresa]

I enjoyed it. Passed it on and they enjoyed it.

[char]

This isn't technically bad in fact it's pretty good but the way the author talks about childhood sexuality kind of grosses me out and I can't really recommend it

[Shirleon Sharron · Rating 3 out of 5]

More to add to the "on a whim" grabs! I think I was looking for a bunch of books I could read in one day - I did!

The poetry was good - it had almost a classical poetry feel mixed with the new Instagram poetry trend that's currently around. It was dark and a bit moody but not terrible. Nothing to rave about but nothing bad to say either.
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Language: I don't remember there being any foul language but...

Explicitness: ...some of the poems were on the edge of lusty and I wasn't a huge fan.