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Voyage of the Sable Venus: and Other Poems
Now in paperback, this National Book Award-winning debut poetry collection is a meditation on the black female figure through time.
Robin Coste Lewis's electrifying collection is a triptych that begins and ends with lyric poems meditating on the roles desire and race play in the construction of the self. In the center of the collection is the title poem, "Voyage of the Sable Venus," an amazing narrative made up entirely of titles of artworks from ancient times to the present--titles that feature or in some way comment on the black female figure in Western art. Bracketed by Lewis's own autobiographical poems, "Voyage" is a tender and shocking meditation on the fragmentary mysteries of stereotype, juxtaposing our names for things with what we actually see and know. A new understanding of biography and the self, this collection questions just where, historically, do ideas about the black female figure truly begin--five hundred years ago, five thousand, or even longer? And what role did art play in this ancient, often heinous story? Here we meet a poet who adores her culture and the beauty to be found within it. Yet she is also a cultural critic alert to the nuances of race and desire--how they define us all, including her own sometimes painful history. Lewis's book is a thrilling aesthetic anthem to the complexity of race--a full embrace of its pleasure and horror, in equal parts.
Robin Coste Lewis's electrifying collection is a triptych that begins and ends with lyric poems meditating on the roles desire and race play in the construction of the self. In the center of the collection is the title poem, "Voyage of the Sable Venus," an amazing narrative made up entirely of titles of artworks from ancient times to the present--titles that feature or in some way comment on the black female figure in Western art. Bracketed by Lewis's own autobiographical poems, "Voyage" is a tender and shocking meditation on the fragmentary mysteries of stereotype, juxtaposing our names for things with what we actually see and know. A new understanding of biography and the self, this collection questions just where, historically, do ideas about the black female figure truly begin--five hundred years ago, five thousand, or even longer? And what role did art play in this ancient, often heinous story? Here we meet a poet who adores her culture and the beauty to be found within it. Yet she is also a cultural critic alert to the nuances of race and desire--how they define us all, including her own sometimes painful history. Lewis's book is a thrilling aesthetic anthem to the complexity of race--a full embrace of its pleasure and horror, in equal parts.
164 pages, Paperback
First published September 29, 2015
About the author
Robin Coste Lewis
13 books112 followersRobin Coste Lewis, the winner of the National Book Award for Voyage of the Sable Venus, is the poet laureate of Los Angeles. She is writer-in-residence at the University of Southern California, as well as a Cave Canem fellow and a fellow of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities. She received her BA from Hampshire College, her MFA in poetry from New York University, an MTS in Sanskrit and comparative religious literature from the Divinity School at Harvard University, and a PhD in poetry and visual studies from the University of Southern California. Lewis was born in Compton, California; her family is from New Orleans.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 259 reviews
September 25, 2015
This is one of the best books I have ever read. It is outstanding, an achievement. Good on Knopf for publishing this book and so beautifully.The poems are so moving, powerful, unapologetically black. On the Road to Sri Bhuvaneshwari is outstanding. Also, Frame. And Lure. I mean, my god. This is a book of poetry. I will write an actual review soon for somewhere, I am still processing. Sable of Venus is an absolutely essential read.
February 15, 2016
Fantastic, absolutely deserving of the National Book Award this past year, an exploration of identity from internal and external perspectives. The title poem, a long one in sections composed entirely of names of works of art containing a black female figure, is astounding in how it morphs and changes just by arranging the words of others.
October 19, 2015
" All is suffering is a bad modernist translation.
What the Buddha really said is: It's all a mixed bag. Shit
is complicated. Everything's fucked up. Everything's gorgeous. Even
Death contains pleasure - six feet below understanding."
- from "Pleasure & Understanding," one of my favorite poems in this astonishing collection that explores and tests our cultural definitions of beauty; history and those who would like to sanitize or erase it; and the power, joy, and pain of personal memory. The title poem is a tour de force that is at once a haunting lyric/found poem and blistering, brilliant art history/criticism.
What the Buddha really said is: It's all a mixed bag. Shit
is complicated. Everything's fucked up. Everything's gorgeous. Even
Death contains pleasure - six feet below understanding."
- from "Pleasure & Understanding," one of my favorite poems in this astonishing collection that explores and tests our cultural definitions of beauty; history and those who would like to sanitize or erase it; and the power, joy, and pain of personal memory. The title poem is a tour de force that is at once a haunting lyric/found poem and blistering, brilliant art history/criticism.
October 13, 2015
This is one of the best collections of poetry written in English, period. Lyricism, conceptual praxis, spiritual theory, socio-political double-twists, and aesthetics criticism blend elegantly in this collection. The body of the goddess, the steppe, the poetic I/ We, and history is no longer fractured - it's sutured. This body hurts and it also feels good, and neither experience of being alive is more important - it's not a series about transcendence, but about descending - walking into the demon's mouth with love and rage, tattered and reconfigured, but not monastic - rather, wearing unexpectedly gorgeous shoes. The title poem is a work of fierce appropriation, remixing, reframing and criticism of artworks and art institutions' depictions or descriptions of black women's bodies - it is a very fine work of art history, as are many other pieces in the book, including "Frame," the poem that is so brilliantly played, it may well be a spell or a very strong prayer.
August 16, 2024
A harrowing, dizzying read- and a collection of brutal poetry that I have not encountered in years since finishing my BA English degree. Ms. Lewis writes of sexuality, racism, the fetishization of black women, and the black experience. Audacious and ambitious, filled with desire and self-loathing, to loathing itself and acceptance with ambivalence, it is a graceful and beautiful work of art.
December 21, 2020
I'm a big fan of this collection- it reminds me of Layli Long Soldier's WHEREAS (another volume I adore) in terms of form, if not content. And yet, while there are some comparisons to be made due to how the central sections of each volume operate as robust rejections of the construction of identity through representational politics (whether that be the literal language of politics, or the more elusive racialization within art history- though, maybe both are so elusive), Coste Lewis grounds herself as a traditionalist nonetheless when it comes to the use of line breaks and the more general arrangement of words on the page. "Félicité" is one of my favorites, and has the most unique form of all the poems contained within, but I mostly like the poem for its story and imagery. I would say that, when it comes to the power and originality of this work, I have to take the whole rather than the fragmented pieces, to comprehend the force.
Some of the poems alone, like "The Body in August," "Lure," and the longer (in terms of title and length) "Let Me Live in a House by the Side of the Road and Be a Friend to Man" are quite good on their own terms, and there are some others as well, but I mostly like this as a full-bodied conceptual-scholarly enterprise. The middle section- Voyage of the Sable Venus- is a critical fabulation, to borrow from Saidiya Hartman: it's an attempt to make the archive speak. So, as a poetical-scholarly work such as this, it's also worthwhile to compare to Zong! by M. NourbeSe Philip, which I won't get into beyond framing this volume as a descendant of that one. Coste Lewis attempts to tell a story of resurgence from an art history built on silent erasure. Does she succeed? I'd say so, but the attempt itself is more moving than whatever finality you want to attach to the matter.
The final segment, a conclusion that is mostly prose, but a little poetic too, offers the poet at her most direct. She basically explains why she took up the project and how it transformed her along the way, ending with a little note on the act of poetry: "For some poets- for me- writing is an archeological act, an archeological practice without landscape or time" (p. 157). I wish I could ask her what she meant by that. I think I know- the blank page is abstract in of itself- but once the words are applied, and maybe before actually, if we're taking the paper materially, then the work ceases to exist in a landless, timeless vacuum. I mean, I thought (think) that that was the whole point of the volume as a whole? Art is seductive, but it has a material trace, and sometimes that trace is more violent and associated with dispossession than the viewer would like to acknowledge. Maybe this is the problem with 'overthinking' things. Oh well. It's a great volume and I love it's ambition. I also love this little bit, which I'll let have the last say:
"But what if the real neurosis stems from our desire for monuments of any kind? Perhaps instead of looking up for an icon, we need to look down and cherish and adore, even worship, the people working quietly right beside us, or even more subtly, working- via memory- right within us." (p. 145)
Some of the poems alone, like "The Body in August," "Lure," and the longer (in terms of title and length) "Let Me Live in a House by the Side of the Road and Be a Friend to Man" are quite good on their own terms, and there are some others as well, but I mostly like this as a full-bodied conceptual-scholarly enterprise. The middle section- Voyage of the Sable Venus- is a critical fabulation, to borrow from Saidiya Hartman: it's an attempt to make the archive speak. So, as a poetical-scholarly work such as this, it's also worthwhile to compare to Zong! by M. NourbeSe Philip, which I won't get into beyond framing this volume as a descendant of that one. Coste Lewis attempts to tell a story of resurgence from an art history built on silent erasure. Does she succeed? I'd say so, but the attempt itself is more moving than whatever finality you want to attach to the matter.
The final segment, a conclusion that is mostly prose, but a little poetic too, offers the poet at her most direct. She basically explains why she took up the project and how it transformed her along the way, ending with a little note on the act of poetry: "For some poets- for me- writing is an archeological act, an archeological practice without landscape or time" (p. 157). I wish I could ask her what she meant by that. I think I know- the blank page is abstract in of itself- but once the words are applied, and maybe before actually, if we're taking the paper materially, then the work ceases to exist in a landless, timeless vacuum. I mean, I thought (think) that that was the whole point of the volume as a whole? Art is seductive, but it has a material trace, and sometimes that trace is more violent and associated with dispossession than the viewer would like to acknowledge. Maybe this is the problem with 'overthinking' things. Oh well. It's a great volume and I love it's ambition. I also love this little bit, which I'll let have the last say:
"But what if the real neurosis stems from our desire for monuments of any kind? Perhaps instead of looking up for an icon, we need to look down and cherish and adore, even worship, the people working quietly right beside us, or even more subtly, working- via memory- right within us." (p. 145)
January 3, 2016
Four and one-half (4 1/2) stars; not four (4) stars.
While I personally favored Terrance Hayes' smart collection of poetry in "How to be Drawn" this book by Robin Coste Lewis tenderly traces her journey of self-discovery toward racial identity and enlightenment that is both thrilling, erudite and tragic. Written in three parts with Part Two containing her intellectual "Voyage" examining the female black figure throughout the history of Western Art. Part One and Part Three make elegant "bookends" to the body of work in Part Two and help the poet firmly establish her place in the firmament of poetic lexiconography and the human experience.
Favorites from Part One that begin her "Voyage" and set the tone for the inspired Part Two are "Plantation," "On the Road to Sri Bhuvaneshwari," "The Mothers" and "Summer." Robin Coste Lewis finishes this little masterpiece with seven beautiful poems of which I count "Frame," "Art & Craft," "Lure," "The Body in August," "Pleasure & Understanding" and, finally, the tragic and ironic "Felicite" as sheer genius.
No question that Robin Coste Lewis is a learned and brilliant poet deserving of the National Book Award in Poetry for 2015. Her poem "Lure" alone shows what richly imaginative arc lies between the words in the verse, "I am not there ... any longer." Great stuff!
For an additional glimpse into the brilliant mind of Robin Coste Lewis, I strongly urge you the reader to watch her incredibly moving acceptance speech at the NBA dinner this last November which can be found at www.nationalbook.org spoken days after the Paris attacks. Poets are the parakeets in the soul-killing mine we work and toil in called "life" and "the human experience." Great poets wake us to the gathering noxious fumes of such "life," inspire us to keep reaching for ever higher levels of consciousness and remind us to never lose focus on what is eternal and most important: art and the soul. As such Robin Coste Lewis, Claudia Rankine and Terrance Hayes are but a few of those voices that are so incredibly worthy of our collective attention and consideration.
DO read this book and DO watch this poet's acceptance speech at www.nationalbook.org. Trust me on this one. You will not only be amazed and glad you did but may even be inspired to share your own personal journey of self-enlightenment to the chorus of our collective human experience.
Happy New Year my fellow "good readers." May your books be plentiful and reading rich and joyful in 2016.
While I personally favored Terrance Hayes' smart collection of poetry in "How to be Drawn" this book by Robin Coste Lewis tenderly traces her journey of self-discovery toward racial identity and enlightenment that is both thrilling, erudite and tragic. Written in three parts with Part Two containing her intellectual "Voyage" examining the female black figure throughout the history of Western Art. Part One and Part Three make elegant "bookends" to the body of work in Part Two and help the poet firmly establish her place in the firmament of poetic lexiconography and the human experience.
Favorites from Part One that begin her "Voyage" and set the tone for the inspired Part Two are "Plantation," "On the Road to Sri Bhuvaneshwari," "The Mothers" and "Summer." Robin Coste Lewis finishes this little masterpiece with seven beautiful poems of which I count "Frame," "Art & Craft," "Lure," "The Body in August," "Pleasure & Understanding" and, finally, the tragic and ironic "Felicite" as sheer genius.
No question that Robin Coste Lewis is a learned and brilliant poet deserving of the National Book Award in Poetry for 2015. Her poem "Lure" alone shows what richly imaginative arc lies between the words in the verse, "I am not there ... any longer." Great stuff!
For an additional glimpse into the brilliant mind of Robin Coste Lewis, I strongly urge you the reader to watch her incredibly moving acceptance speech at the NBA dinner this last November which can be found at www.nationalbook.org spoken days after the Paris attacks. Poets are the parakeets in the soul-killing mine we work and toil in called "life" and "the human experience." Great poets wake us to the gathering noxious fumes of such "life," inspire us to keep reaching for ever higher levels of consciousness and remind us to never lose focus on what is eternal and most important: art and the soul. As such Robin Coste Lewis, Claudia Rankine and Terrance Hayes are but a few of those voices that are so incredibly worthy of our collective attention and consideration.
DO read this book and DO watch this poet's acceptance speech at www.nationalbook.org. Trust me on this one. You will not only be amazed and glad you did but may even be inspired to share your own personal journey of self-enlightenment to the chorus of our collective human experience.
Happy New Year my fellow "good readers." May your books be plentiful and reading rich and joyful in 2016.
April 19, 2025
The found poem concept of the titular poem was so interesting to me here, and very effective. My favorite poems were the most narrative.
January 19, 2016
IQ "Knowing
taught me-quickly-to spell community
more honestly: l-o-n-e-l-y.
During Arts and Crafts, when Miss Larson allowed
the scissors out, I'd sneak a pair, then cut
my hair to stop me from growing too long" (121) Art & Craft
^Raise your head if you've felt like this before when mocked for being a bookworm, being the only one in accelerated learning classes, etc.
I have never taken a poetry course, we covered the basics my freshman year in high school but I barely remember what we learned. Thus I am not the best audience for poetry because I rarely understand the deeper meaning behind it, nor can I easily identify the style or form the poet wrote. All that being said I found the writing to be absolutely marvelous, even if some of the deeper meanings went way over my head. Shoutout to the New Yorker for breaking down most of these poems and terms for me (poems about art are called ekphrasis) so I move behind simple awe http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...
Of course I loved the titular poem and am beyond impressed by its scope, it packs a punch and will stay with me. I don't think I can describe the punch to the gut this book produces when you read about all the horrid ways Black women have been referred to/used in Western art over the course of 38,000 years. However it does get better (naturally) as we progress into more modern works of art, the poems and art included tend to be feminist and LGBT friendly. The nerd in me also appreciates that she includes the museums and academic collections that she drew her inspiration from although I wish she had matched each art object with the place it can be viewed. "Frame", "Felicite" and "From: To: " were my favorite poems, "Lure" is too devastating and sickening to be a favorite but it was phenomenal in its delivery and sudden impact. "Felicitie" wrestles with the emotional baggage of learning that a side of your family owned slaves, "From: To: gives agency to Black WWII soldiers, giving them a fleeting moment of glee in a war that frequently tried to strip them of their dignity; "At last, a dark murderous lunatic
to whom they are allowed to respond.
Here, no on expects them to be strung
up by their necks-dangled-and then left
to be cut down from a tall tree-and not cry" (20).
Also the cover is a solid A although I have no clue what the deeper meaning might be except that she probably isn't allowed into the store she's staring at and/or if she is allowed in she will be treated poorly (or plot twist it's a Black store and there my theories end).
taught me-quickly-to spell community
more honestly: l-o-n-e-l-y.
During Arts and Crafts, when Miss Larson allowed
the scissors out, I'd sneak a pair, then cut
my hair to stop me from growing too long" (121) Art & Craft
^Raise your head if you've felt like this before when mocked for being a bookworm, being the only one in accelerated learning classes, etc.
I have never taken a poetry course, we covered the basics my freshman year in high school but I barely remember what we learned. Thus I am not the best audience for poetry because I rarely understand the deeper meaning behind it, nor can I easily identify the style or form the poet wrote. All that being said I found the writing to be absolutely marvelous, even if some of the deeper meanings went way over my head. Shoutout to the New Yorker for breaking down most of these poems and terms for me (poems about art are called ekphrasis) so I move behind simple awe http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...
Of course I loved the titular poem and am beyond impressed by its scope, it packs a punch and will stay with me. I don't think I can describe the punch to the gut this book produces when you read about all the horrid ways Black women have been referred to/used in Western art over the course of 38,000 years. However it does get better (naturally) as we progress into more modern works of art, the poems and art included tend to be feminist and LGBT friendly. The nerd in me also appreciates that she includes the museums and academic collections that she drew her inspiration from although I wish she had matched each art object with the place it can be viewed. "Frame", "Felicite" and "From: To: " were my favorite poems, "Lure" is too devastating and sickening to be a favorite but it was phenomenal in its delivery and sudden impact. "Felicitie" wrestles with the emotional baggage of learning that a side of your family owned slaves, "From: To: gives agency to Black WWII soldiers, giving them a fleeting moment of glee in a war that frequently tried to strip them of their dignity; "At last, a dark murderous lunatic
to whom they are allowed to respond.
Here, no on expects them to be strung
up by their necks-dangled-and then left
to be cut down from a tall tree-and not cry" (20).
Also the cover is a solid A although I have no clue what the deeper meaning might be except that she probably isn't allowed into the store she's staring at and/or if she is allowed in she will be treated poorly (or plot twist it's a Black store and there my theories end).
July 28, 2016
Reading this book is like walking through a museum. The poems are exquisite, well-crafted, and impressive. But they are also a bit sterile, like museum pieces. I understand the context in which these poems are presented to me, but it feels like a theme in an exhibit. This book is a brilliant show of post-modern poetry, but there is a distance between the poems and the reader, a velvet rope that separates the reader from experience and relegates one to appreciation.
February 5, 2017
3.5!
A powerful read!
A powerful read!
April 19, 2022
Sheeeeesh
January 23, 2023
a gift i was glad to receive. the short works are stunning, but the epic title piece moves in ways that surprised me on nearly every line
April 27, 2016
Now I don't want you to look at the one star missing here and think that this wasn't a mind mindbogglingly good book. It was crazy good. In fact it was so good, I had trouble understanding it. I think the problem here was that I took out a library copy and therefor could not highlight, underline, and otherwise scribble manically in the margins. Is this always necessary with poetry? No, but I have noticed that it tends to be necessary with the good stuff.
I never would think that the judges of the National Book Award would pick a dud, but I didn't realize just how earth shattering this would be. I really loved the opening and closing sections, the area I had a bit of trouble with was the one in the middle. It was almost entirely comprised of what looked like catalog entries, and while I started to understand how it was objectifying people, I am not sure that I will wholly understand what she was trying to do without reading it through several more times and practically covering the pages with annotations.
This I think is one that I will add to the coveted list of books worth rereading. Maybe once I have read more poetry and have come to understand it better I will read this and suddenly be all knowing and understanding, but maybe I just am not the target audience, I cannot understand because I have not experienced what is captured in these pages. With a book dedicated primarily to the objectification of African People and women in particular, this is understandable. As a young white women I experience a fraction of the injustices that are displayed within here. Even I could understand how harrowing this collection is. One to get for the shelves of my own I think.
I never would think that the judges of the National Book Award would pick a dud, but I didn't realize just how earth shattering this would be. I really loved the opening and closing sections, the area I had a bit of trouble with was the one in the middle. It was almost entirely comprised of what looked like catalog entries, and while I started to understand how it was objectifying people, I am not sure that I will wholly understand what she was trying to do without reading it through several more times and practically covering the pages with annotations.
This I think is one that I will add to the coveted list of books worth rereading. Maybe once I have read more poetry and have come to understand it better I will read this and suddenly be all knowing and understanding, but maybe I just am not the target audience, I cannot understand because I have not experienced what is captured in these pages. With a book dedicated primarily to the objectification of African People and women in particular, this is understandable. As a young white women I experience a fraction of the injustices that are displayed within here. Even I could understand how harrowing this collection is. One to get for the shelves of my own I think.
May 28, 2016
Amazing first book of poetry. It would be amazing at any point in a career. The title poem, which forms the central panel of a triptych of historical memory, consists solely of the titles and descriptions of works of art involving black women; I'm not going to try to summarize the rules Lewis established for herself, but that captures the idea. It could have felt gimmicky, but it doesn't. The montage makes a complicated set of points about the interaction of representation and experience, the politics of art, and the evasive confrontations of language. And it sings, radiating the kind of lyricism I look for in poetry, the magic that happens when words and rhythms open up perception--not exactly understanding--that hadn't been there before. It's structured more or less chronologically, but by the time you reach the end, the sense of time looping and doubling obviates any simple notion of progress or declension.
The poems in the sections that frame Voyage of the Sable Vision meet the challenge of standing next to something unique. The opening and closing poems, "Plantation" and "Felicite," descend into Lewis's family history--the black female side of her family once owned slaves--fingering the jagged grain of the way that history echoes in the present. "Frame" and "Lure," a harrowing poem about family complicities in the sexual abuse of children, hit me particularly hard, but I'm guessing that re-readings will add to that list.
The poems in the sections that frame Voyage of the Sable Vision meet the challenge of standing next to something unique. The opening and closing poems, "Plantation" and "Felicite," descend into Lewis's family history--the black female side of her family once owned slaves--fingering the jagged grain of the way that history echoes in the present. "Frame" and "Lure," a harrowing poem about family complicities in the sexual abuse of children, hit me particularly hard, but I'm guessing that re-readings will add to that list.
November 19, 2015
“Art hurts. Art urges voyages—” (Gwendolyn Brooks)
Oh, so many chills! A beautiful, heart-rending, inventive book of poems. (Those breathtaking line breaks!) Highly, highly recommended. The best poems I’ve read this year. With many thanks to Wei for giving us a copy.
The titular collection (a survey of the history of art featuring black women) is amazing, but also, my favorite poems in the book:
“On the Road to Sri Bhuvaneshwari”
“From: To:”
“Let Me Live in a House by the Side of the Road and Be a Friend to Man”
“Summer”
“Frame”
From “Frame”:
Oh, so many chills! A beautiful, heart-rending, inventive book of poems. (Those breathtaking line breaks!) Highly, highly recommended. The best poems I’ve read this year. With many thanks to Wei for giving us a copy.
The titular collection (a survey of the history of art featuring black women) is amazing, but also, my favorite poems in the book:
“On the Road to Sri Bhuvaneshwari”
“From: To:”
“Let Me Live in a House by the Side of the Road and Be a Friend to Man”
“Summer”
“Frame”
From “Frame”:
Our textbooks stuttered over the same four pictures every year: that girl
in the foreground, on the balcony: black loafers, white bobby socks, black skirt,
cardigan, white collar. Her hand pointing. The others—all men—looking
so smart, shirt-and-tied, like the gentle men on my street, pointing
as well, toward the air—
the blank page, the well-worn hollow space—
from which the answer was always
that same hoary thud.
Every year these four photographs
taught us how English was really a type of trick math:
like the naked Emperor, you could be a King
capable of imagining just one single dream;
or there could be a body, bloody
at your feet—then you could point at the sky;
or you could be a hunched-over cotton-picking shame;
or you could swing from a tree by your neck into the frame.
January 24, 2016
What an amazing and challenging book...using art catalogues and ships' manifests, the central part of the book lays open the bodies of black women in "found" language manipulated, punctuated, spaced and arranged by the author to overwhelming effect. Lyric poems that feel utterly personal bookend this central section and are equally although more personally heart-wrenching. It's a collection that needs to be read many times. Its power accrues. I am awed that this is Lewis's first collection. How wonderful that she received the National Book Award for it. It feels like a lifetime's worth of study, composition, art.
February 26, 2016
Wow. I read this almost straight through in two days, which rarely happens with a book of poems. An incredibly powerful and versatile poet takes on the history of aesthetics as applied to the black female body.
The title catalog/found poem was wonderful, but I also really loved the more narrative pieces as well. "On the Road to Sri Bhuvaneshwari" was one of my favorites, I read it multiple times. I loved also that it was longer than the typical poetry collection. So often I find myself wanting more - a longer book like this really lets you dive in to a poet's work.
The title catalog/found poem was wonderful, but I also really loved the more narrative pieces as well. "On the Road to Sri Bhuvaneshwari" was one of my favorites, I read it multiple times. I loved also that it was longer than the typical poetry collection. So often I find myself wanting more - a longer book like this really lets you dive in to a poet's work.
January 27, 2016
"Is there a street that can anticipate
our tenderness? A corner or curb
that stands still waiting for me?
Where is the road - gilded and broad -
which can foresee our vast inability
not to love?"
our tenderness? A corner or curb
that stands still waiting for me?
Where is the road - gilded and broad -
which can foresee our vast inability
not to love?"
September 4, 2016
The poems "Felicite" and "From: To:" are powerful as hell!
January 6, 2021
cant stop thinking about That One Poem 🥺 so guess its time for my annual reread 🤠
February 26, 2023
wow wow wow. robin coste lewis truly has a way with words. some of her poems are so visceral, visual, lyrical, and gut-wrenching. i really enjoyed her works because she she's one of the few poets whose works play with words in an interesting way without sacrificing concrete imagery in favor of coming up with new combinations of phrases/images that don't manifest easily. i appreciate that a lot in poetry because it feels like some poetry can get so caught up in being "inventive" that their images end up being too abstract to really land. but lewis, lewis here, especially in her section of the voyage, does reinvent, does innovate. making my way through this section and seeing how she manipulates these artwork titles and their sparse descriptions is awe-inspiring. there lies a passion and a loathing and a fear and a sorrow, and sometimes fury, all wrapped into each of these poems. it's really an incredible collection. ah but wait but wait!! the epilogue, which the version of the book i borrowed from columbia's library did not possess but isabella's personal copy did, was one of my absolute favorite parts of the book. i think reading this part really cemented my love for this collection as we peep into robin's process -- all the thoughts and feelings and crawling -- that brought her, no, that called to her, to write this collection, to seek more where others have rarely chosen to find more. she is sleuth and prostrated follower of the Sable Venus. she is mother and academic. she is alone but not lonely. she loves and is loved by the Sable Venus. and i can't help but love robin too. she is in love with words and she is in love with the world and all its ugly beauty, and i am too. i found myself crying at bits throughout the epilogue and through this collection because she created these poems from her life and from the crevices of life and history itself.
February 4, 2025
this has reached the charts as one of my favorite collections of poetry!!! i’m in awe by the seamless and beautiful work that lewis did in this as she maps the self against a painful history. everything was purposeful and precise, but never once felt clinical — on the contrary, some of these poems made me the most emotional i’ve ever been from a piece of writing.
starting with section 1 (one of the framing sections), the poem “on the road to sri bhuvaneshwari” is one that will stick with me for YEARS to come. lewis writes “i have to go back/to that wet black thing/dead in the road. i have to turn around./i must put my face in it// it is my first time/i would not have it any other way/i am a valley of repeating/verdant balconies.” viewing this poem both within the context of the collection (reckoning with history) & on its own (reckoning with embodiment) is stunning, & will haunt me forever.
section 2 is the meat of the collection, in a project that is a study on art, representation and the self. she maneuvers through history via the titles of art pieces that depict black women — prompting a heartbreaking and necessary (and yet, still so clever) exploration. in these catalogs, lewis plays with form, punctuation, and line breaks to complicate history (as she set a rule for herself to not alter the text itself) which creates such an interesting discussion on modern poetry. so impressed
section 3 seems to also be doing a lot of work as a framing mechanism, but still stands strongly on its own. “lure” was extremely difficult for me to read, but i have to applaud the ‘frame within a frame’ that she’s doing — finding power in intentional distancing/depersonalization. “félicite” was also heartbreaking and something i’ll think about for the rest of my life.
this was a stunning collection, and i’m excited to read so much more of lewis!
starting with section 1 (one of the framing sections), the poem “on the road to sri bhuvaneshwari” is one that will stick with me for YEARS to come. lewis writes “i have to go back/to that wet black thing/dead in the road. i have to turn around./i must put my face in it// it is my first time/i would not have it any other way/i am a valley of repeating/verdant balconies.” viewing this poem both within the context of the collection (reckoning with history) & on its own (reckoning with embodiment) is stunning, & will haunt me forever.
section 2 is the meat of the collection, in a project that is a study on art, representation and the self. she maneuvers through history via the titles of art pieces that depict black women — prompting a heartbreaking and necessary (and yet, still so clever) exploration. in these catalogs, lewis plays with form, punctuation, and line breaks to complicate history (as she set a rule for herself to not alter the text itself) which creates such an interesting discussion on modern poetry. so impressed
section 3 seems to also be doing a lot of work as a framing mechanism, but still stands strongly on its own. “lure” was extremely difficult for me to read, but i have to applaud the ‘frame within a frame’ that she’s doing — finding power in intentional distancing/depersonalization. “félicite” was also heartbreaking and something i’ll think about for the rest of my life.
this was a stunning collection, and i’m excited to read so much more of lewis!
February 27, 2021
If you read professional reviews, like this one from The Rumpus you'll see how completely brilliant this book is.
Unfortunately for me, I don't have the context required to fully appreciate this book. Most of this book went over my head. Some of the poems will linger with me, but most of them I don't understand.
Unfortunately for me, I don't have the context required to fully appreciate this book. Most of this book went over my head. Some of the poems will linger with me, but most of them I don't understand.
Summer
Last summer, two discrete young snakes left their skin
on my small porch, two mornings in a row. Being
postmodern now, I pretended as if I did not see
them, nor understand what I knew to be circling
inside me. Instead, every hour I told my son
to stop with his incessant back-chat. I peeled
a banana. And cursed God—His arrogance,
His gall—to still expect our devotion
after creating love. And mosquitoes. I showed
my son the papery dead skins so he could
know, too, what it feels like when something shows up
at your door—twice—telling you what you already know.
December 20, 2022
I have been having such an amazing reading month. So much to love.
This collection feels monumental, like a work that has never been done before, let alone done so well. It's challenging, provocative, elusive, intimate, bereft of ego, touching, evocative, and constantly has its eyes set on the uncomfortable line between past and present. The past informs the present, and the present is basically always the past masquerading as something akin to progress instead of what it is: history.
The central, titular poem is incredible. I love her lyrics work in the first and third sections, but "Voyage of the Sable Venus" is the type of idiosyncratic poetic accomplishment that begs to be read and reread while always amazing you that it's even possible that it exists. It's sheer reality on the page is an aesthetic miracle of sorts, as if it shouldn't exist, yet it persists to be so. You just have to experience it and allow it to wash over you. Let it work its magic.
Makes sense that she won the National Book Award. Unimaginably felt and erudite.
This collection feels monumental, like a work that has never been done before, let alone done so well. It's challenging, provocative, elusive, intimate, bereft of ego, touching, evocative, and constantly has its eyes set on the uncomfortable line between past and present. The past informs the present, and the present is basically always the past masquerading as something akin to progress instead of what it is: history.
The central, titular poem is incredible. I love her lyrics work in the first and third sections, but "Voyage of the Sable Venus" is the type of idiosyncratic poetic accomplishment that begs to be read and reread while always amazing you that it's even possible that it exists. It's sheer reality on the page is an aesthetic miracle of sorts, as if it shouldn't exist, yet it persists to be so. You just have to experience it and allow it to wash over you. Let it work its magic.
Makes sense that she won the National Book Award. Unimaginably felt and erudite.
June 28, 2022
“There are two presidents who seek solace
behind one enormous pewter mask: one
who believes in a verdant coup; the other
addicted to tradition's scarlet singe. I know
neither man has any real power. I know
one day they will become one man
only, and he will climb back up
into his wonderfully colored hot air
balloon and try to take this place with him.
I am tired. I want to leave. I want to believe
there is a room, a space, just one
ethereal molecule that finds delight
in its presumption of our delicate plainness.
There is yet any evidence, but people talk
about it: some odd empty place called home.”
what a miraculous book of poetry! I most enjoyed the long, eponymous poem that forms the center of the collection: a story entirely created from the titles and museum descriptions of Western “art,” broadly defined, featuring people of color. I believe that that poem itself is reason enough to read the book, but the others were great too, including the excerpt I posted above: a multi-part poem in celebration of the movie version of The Wiz!!! this is a must-read in my opinion.
(4.5 stars)
behind one enormous pewter mask: one
who believes in a verdant coup; the other
addicted to tradition's scarlet singe. I know
neither man has any real power. I know
one day they will become one man
only, and he will climb back up
into his wonderfully colored hot air
balloon and try to take this place with him.
I am tired. I want to leave. I want to believe
there is a room, a space, just one
ethereal molecule that finds delight
in its presumption of our delicate plainness.
There is yet any evidence, but people talk
about it: some odd empty place called home.”
what a miraculous book of poetry! I most enjoyed the long, eponymous poem that forms the center of the collection: a story entirely created from the titles and museum descriptions of Western “art,” broadly defined, featuring people of color. I believe that that poem itself is reason enough to read the book, but the others were great too, including the excerpt I posted above: a multi-part poem in celebration of the movie version of The Wiz!!! this is a must-read in my opinion.
(4.5 stars)
December 29, 2025
Last summer, two discrete young snakes left their skin on my small porch, two mornings in a row. Being
postmodern now, I pretended as if I did not see them, nor understand what I knew to be circling
inside me. Instead, every hour I told my son to stop with his incessant back-chat. I peeled
a banana. And cursed God—His arrogance, His gall—to still expect our devotion
after creating love. And mosquitoes. I showed my son the papery dead skins so he could
know, too, what it feels like when something shows up at your door—twice—telling you what you already know.
postmodern now, I pretended as if I did not see them, nor understand what I knew to be circling
inside me. Instead, every hour I told my son to stop with his incessant back-chat. I peeled
a banana. And cursed God—His arrogance, His gall—to still expect our devotion
after creating love. And mosquitoes. I showed my son the papery dead skins so he could
know, too, what it feels like when something shows up at your door—twice—telling you what you already know.
November 19, 2025
love love loved this! I really appreciated the construction of this book: her more personal, subjective poems in the beginning and end while the middle section—through an artful approach—spoke to the representation of the black female form in art. it was nice to watch her—and make me—reckon with the ways we (black women) have been perceived throughout history while contrasting it with how she sees herself and the world. took off a star because I’m greedy and wanted more poems!!!!!
December 16, 2020
An amazing read. Lewis brings the life back to the many Black women whose lives were discarded by the thieves of museums, the thieves of slavery. And recognizes where power and identity might exist within the body. So much to ponder in this. A landmark.
June 7, 2021
Very innovative and it feels like a written walk through a museum but if I'm being totally honest, I can sense the importance and beauty of it but I'm not sure I can fully appreciate this work. I think it's a bit over my head and I am ok with admitting that!
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