God Was Right

by Rainer Diana Hamilton

God Was Right collects poems that take the form of arguments, essays, and letters. The title poem argues that God was right to make us love cats (and then watch them die); another categorizes the way women like to be kissed; one proposes a sex ed that takes into account persuasion and pleasure; another argues men should write bad poetry; a letter tries to make friendship about love; a five-paragraph essay tries to disarm heartbreak via analysis; etc. These poems/essays are hyperbolic attempts to write something adequate to a feeling.

"In the Gorgias, Plato triangulates poetry and philosophy by inextricably linking the former to rhetoric: the art of persuasion, and the linguistic hinge between freedom and domination. But Plato’s foundational philosophical texts are themselves more poetic than they would like to admit, and Hamilton’s poems drop his philosophical tradition straight into the abyss: Platonic dialogues for our social-media age, in which the mode and subject of discourse are collapsed, revealing all their naked truths in a cold, unforgiving, inescapable light. If nothing else, these poems will convince you that Hamilton has something genuinely distinctive, insightful, and important to tell us about poetic and theoretical discourse."
—CRAIG DWORKIN

"I love this book. I am grateful for it. I wasn't prepared for all of the risks Hamilton takes - sometimes with aplomb/sometimes not, which is evermore compelling and trustworthy - and I have been a longtime reader. It's a book that, if you invest in the experience, could usher you into a dark night of the soul, where claims to self and knowledge are only won after being rigorously refuted. Woolf said that Montaigne's achievement was "a miraculous adjustment of all these wayward parts." The beauty (transformative capacity) of these poem essays is in how they further the possibility that she, and we, get to live more openly with our meanings restored - a farewell to abjection."
—STACY SZYMASZEK

Genres: Poetry, Essays

Paperback

Published November 1, 2018

Reviews

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

you know what? god WAS right

[yuni · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://uglyducklingpresse.org/wp-con...

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hands down one of my favorite books of poetry. Or is it hybrid nonfiction something? Lyric essays? Except some pieces were just straight up poems--but long and digressive like essays? Anyway, I was excited every night to pick this back up and and dig back in. Hamilton thinks about the nature of writing, sex and sexuality, animals, and pop culture and weaves them all together into these open-ended meditations that I can't get enough of.

[Taylor Napolsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting. I liked the more essayistic sections the best, but maybe that’s just because I enjoy reading prose so much. But I like how she would split what could be seen as essays into poetic forms, with dashes, commas, all types of punctuation at the ends of lines.

She covers a lot of intriguing topics, and yeah, I love feminist shit in general, so...

[Katie Schmid · Rating 5 out of 5]

With this one, I had the rare experience of feeling like a book was written for me. Stellar, challenging, interesting reading experience. I love the meditations on the discontents of bisexuality, the narrative theory (BARTHES!! :) ), the meditations on pet ownership. I love the variations of tone, I loved it all. I devoured it.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will never forget how she questioned the form of poetry and dared to say it wasn't the best shape for everything. Such an amazing thinker. Brave and bold and I ate it up.

Thank you, Pablo, for this book, gifted on my birthday.

[Steve Brock · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a Best of the Best for the month of November 2018, as selected by Stevo's Book Reviews on the Internet. http://forums.delphiforums.com/stevo1...

[meesh · Rating 3 out of 5]

this could’ve just been essays imo but it has interesting takeaways idk it didn’t hit the way i like poetry to hit