What do you think?
Rate this book
Spitting Image
Kara van de Graaf’s debut collection heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary poetry. Through poems that balance personal recollection with ekphrasis, science, and meditation, Van de Graaf searches for answers in the fluctuating relationship between the body and the self.
Taking as its primary theme the exploration of the female body in current culture, Spitting Image considers the myriad intersections of the body and gender, desire, relationships, and otherness. Van de Graaf interrogates underrepresented elements of the female experience, especially the physical, rhetorical, and aesthetic limitations of fatness in poetry and other arts. She then complicates those limitations through her use of innovative forms and imaginative verse, implicitly calling for poetry to engage with the female form in fresh ways. Throughout, Van de Graaf’s poems In a time where we have more agency to define ourselves than ever before, what barriers still remain? What do our bodies mean to who we are?
At turns oblique and direct, Van de Graaf’s poems strive to create space for themselves not only in the field of contemporary poetry but also in a larger world that has been prone to ignoring or shaming women for their bodies. That these poems succeed on both counts is a testament to this remarkable new poet, who claims “That millimeter of space that means / all of us are apart, that means / we can never really touch / anything. . . . Yes, I want that, too.”
Taking as its primary theme the exploration of the female body in current culture, Spitting Image considers the myriad intersections of the body and gender, desire, relationships, and otherness. Van de Graaf interrogates underrepresented elements of the female experience, especially the physical, rhetorical, and aesthetic limitations of fatness in poetry and other arts. She then complicates those limitations through her use of innovative forms and imaginative verse, implicitly calling for poetry to engage with the female form in fresh ways. Throughout, Van de Graaf’s poems In a time where we have more agency to define ourselves than ever before, what barriers still remain? What do our bodies mean to who we are?
At turns oblique and direct, Van de Graaf’s poems strive to create space for themselves not only in the field of contemporary poetry but also in a larger world that has been prone to ignoring or shaming women for their bodies. That these poems succeed on both counts is a testament to this remarkable new poet, who claims “That millimeter of space that means / all of us are apart, that means / we can never really touch / anything. . . . Yes, I want that, too.”
- GenresPoetry
80 pages, Paperback
First published March 14, 2018
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 13, 2018
3 1/2 stars actually.
This is a really solid first collection, and as a woman, a lot of these poems really resonated with me. What keeps it from four stars is that it feels like a first book--and by that I mean, it sometimes feels a little too polished, like something that has been molded by M.F.A. workshops as is the case with many poets. But van de Graaf has knock-it-out-of-the-park potential. I anticipate that her second book will do just that. In the meantime, this is well worth the read.
This is a really solid first collection, and as a woman, a lot of these poems really resonated with me. What keeps it from four stars is that it feels like a first book--and by that I mean, it sometimes feels a little too polished, like something that has been molded by M.F.A. workshops as is the case with many poets. But van de Graaf has knock-it-out-of-the-park potential. I anticipate that her second book will do just that. In the meantime, this is well worth the read.
April 15, 2020
I was very intrigued by this collection of poems. It was clear to me that many of these could resonate with women, however I don’t think that women within a specific age group were a target audience. These can be read and enjoyed by anyone, as long as the reader is able to really internalize the text and think about the points she is making.
One thing that was on my mind while reading her poems was the thought, “What does the author want me to think here?” I was constantly asking myself if there was something she would like me to see from her figurative language, or if I was free to imagine up my own meanings from the symbols she presented.
I could tell she really has spent time thinking about the body, not just the human body, but the bodies of all living things. What do they mean to us? What to they mean to them? Many of her writings were very self-reflective, mirror-like, causing one to turn inwards and think. What do I think about the way I look, compared to what others think about me?
Something else I admired were her comparisons, objects to objects, bodies to objects, and so forth. Van de Graaf was so descriptive in an unusual way, I don’t think I’ve ever even considered some of the comparisons she made in the poems. She told a story about seeing a whale in a Museum of Natural History and her experience with it, its body and enormity. She described it as a “beating heart of the earth”, just to put it into perspective. Very intimate, very respectful.
One thing that was on my mind while reading her poems was the thought, “What does the author want me to think here?” I was constantly asking myself if there was something she would like me to see from her figurative language, or if I was free to imagine up my own meanings from the symbols she presented.
I could tell she really has spent time thinking about the body, not just the human body, but the bodies of all living things. What do they mean to us? What to they mean to them? Many of her writings were very self-reflective, mirror-like, causing one to turn inwards and think. What do I think about the way I look, compared to what others think about me?
Something else I admired were her comparisons, objects to objects, bodies to objects, and so forth. Van de Graaf was so descriptive in an unusual way, I don’t think I’ve ever even considered some of the comparisons she made in the poems. She told a story about seeing a whale in a Museum of Natural History and her experience with it, its body and enormity. She described it as a “beating heart of the earth”, just to put it into perspective. Very intimate, very respectful.
March 18, 2018
In Spitting Image, everything in this world is a mirror to reflect back on the human condition, be it whales, a guillotine, a queen bee, caulk on a bathtub, a women’s apparel store. The poems often began as quiet poems—careful descriptions of nature or physical objects with exquisite imagery—but Van de Graaf is a master of both epiphanies and the poetic turn, and the poems pivot on their subject matter and turn towards us—accusingly, achingly, lovingly.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews