Tomorrow's Woman

by Greta Bellamacina

A dazzling poetic meditation on motherhood, female identity, ennui, and love by Greta Bellamacina, London-based poet, actress, filmmaker, and model.

In Tomorrow's Woman, Greta Bellamacina's bold, exploratory voice combines the vivid imagery of French surrealism and British romantic poetry with a modern, first-person examination of love, gender identity, motherhood, and social issues. Andy Warhol's Interview Magazine writes that "Bellamacina is garnering critical acclaim for her way with words and her ability to translate the classic poetic form into the contemporary creative landscape."

This is her first volume of her poetry to be released in the United States.

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Paperback

Published February 4, 2020

Reviews

[Erika Sarutobi · Rating 3 out of 5]

RTC

[Ritika Chhabra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Follow Just A Girl High On Books for more reviews.

When I started reading Greta Bellamacina's Tomorrow's Woman, I did so with high expectations. I'm not entirely sure why exactly was I this excited for it. I guess the fact that the book promised to revolve around femininity, motherhood, gender identity and other social issues along with love.

However, by the time I was done with it, I was deeply disappointed. The poems didn't resonate well with me. There were so many times, in fact, when I wanted to throw my phone away because I couldn't bear to read them any longer. Yet, I persisted in the hopes that the "beauty" of the poems would come out soon. It never did. And I was left feeling like a broken person.

It isn't that the poems weren't bold or written in an exploratory voice, as the blurb promises. They were like that, but they just didn't give out those emotions. Nothing in this book was as you expected and that bothered me a lot. Now I'm not saying that the book is trash. I'm certain there may be people who would be overjoyed after reading it. All I'm saying is that I didn't find Tomorrow's Woman to be enough.

[Rach · Rating 4 out of 5]

A review, in haiku✨

I am a woman,
a mother, a lover, a
poet, a griever.

Greta Bellamacina’s TOMORROW’S WOMAN is a really great contemporary poetry book that leads with a strong hold of classic poetry. In the pages of TOMORROW’S WOMAN the topics of womanhood, identify, motherhood, love, loss, grief, + some are all touched upon.

A lot of contemporary poetry is typically highlighted by (sorrrrrrrrry) “insta” poets. Long form poetry like the poems in TOMORROW’S WOMAN often get drowned out by that short, three line, insta poetry form. It was nice to see something modern, yet classic.

In these poems, Bellamacina uses language and words to describe mundane, daily things in such a different way. Example: “she is the blue of light,” and “I have taken out my arms, made them into curtains.” Just these vividly painted pictures of things we all know in such a unique way. I loved it.

At times themes and images are seemingly cliché, but the way Bellamacina uses the language and the word is just so fresh and classic at the same time. It’s hard to explain. You just gotta read it.

A few favorite poems from this book are: the title poem ‘Tomorrow’s Woman,’ ‘Living Room Mirror,’ ‘Afterlight,’

[Maeve · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve never read modern poetry like this, so I’m not sure I really “got” it. It’s very abstract and psychedelic.

[Sassy Sarah Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tomorrow’s Woman by Greta Bellamacina

5 stars

Woah. This is the poetry collection I’ve been searching for by modern poets. Modern poetry is steeped in a lot of short and clipped poetry. Some of it can pack a punch, but most of it just leaves me hanging and unsatisfied. Tomorrow’s Woman showcases that long-form poetry is not forgotten and is still effective. It was STUNNING. Greta Bellamacina is a truly captivating poet and one of the best of our age. This collection captivated me and it covers everything from love, grief, and pregnancy. I loved that this collection celebrates pregnancy and what that can mean for a woman. I feel like there aren’t many poems written about the topic and it was beautiful to read in this medium. I was also a huge fan of her conservation poetry “Whale Nation in a Plastic Bag” was one of the best poems in this collection.

“Tomorrow’s woman has seen war in heaven
she is the blue of light before time draws”

Whimsical Writing Scale: 5

Favorite Poems:
*Tomorrow’s Woman
*Church
*Living Room Mirror
*Whole World On Your Hips
*Clear Water
*Revolution
*In the Morning, Penelope
*Life
*Pale Gold
*Stockholm Syndrome
*New Glass
*When You Wake
*Collapse of the World
*Dartmoor Wedding Song
*Death
*The Dreamers
*Silent Languages
*Phosphorescent
*Above Water
*The Perseid Meteor Shower
*Afterlight
*Missing Europe
*Unoccupied
*The Jungle
*May Trees
*Whale Nation in a Plastic Bag
*East Window
*Dawn Breaking

I would recommend this poetry collection 100%. Out of all of the poetry collections I’ve read this is the only one that I have enjoyed all of it and had no issues. I loved it. If you only read one poem in 2020, pick up Tomorrow’s Woman.

Plotastic Scale: 5
Cover Thoughts: I love the cover and the blurred image. I saw it and was immediately drawn in.

Thank you, Netgalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing, for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

[Mohini Jugran · Rating 3 out of 5]

Title; Tomorrow's Women
Author: Greta Bellamacina
Rating: Two and a half Stars

A dazzling poetic meditation on motherhood, female identity, ennui, and love by Greta Bellamacina, London-based poet, actress, filmmaker, and model.

Personally I picked it up a couple of times trying to see the magic others saw in this one. But honestly, I just failed to see it.
Halfway through after a dozen attempts to understand her thoughts, I gave up. There were so many things that didn't resonate with me at all.
Maybe others might enjoy it. Many have. But this one just wasn't for me, I guess. It just seemed like an average book of mediocre writing skills when I did finish it successfully.

Tomorrow's Woman isn't my kinda book.

[Kristina · Rating 3 out of 5]

A poetry collection on womanhood. I related to some of it but not most of it. Interesting and experimental.

[Sherri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This striking cover caught my eye and the thoughtful poems it held did not disappoint. The poems vary in length from a few lines to two pages, giving it a nice rhythm without getting monotonous. A good number of these poems fall into the form of writing that is not necessarily readily understandable, but is truly beautiful and allows for reader interpretation. Those who love to interpret passages on their own will enjoy these poems. Readers who prefer to have things simply stated may be less comfortable.

[Neriah · Rating 1 out of 5]

"You are reminded again of the sky
a flower of dust, dancing like a snow globe
emptying out its possessions for you
Before there was anything,
everything was hailing,
all our hearts were comets up in the sky
and everything was hailing."

Thank you Andrew Mcmeel's for reaching out to me about reviewing this poetry collection!

I am disappointed. Whenever I have a bad review to write, I always wait until I don't feel strongly about it but 4 days later and I am still strongly disappointed.

For me, a poem is something that you let your heart and soul to feel with. Sometimes, you come across some thought-provoking poems that question your intellect and resonates deeply in your heart and soul. Poetry is something that entwines with your heart and dances with your soul. But this collection...

Greta has brought out some beautiful, new metaphors and imagery in such a good way but by focussing on new metaphors, she has lost the essence of the poems as a whole. They all make sense in bits and pieces but never as a whole. There are some poems which demands too much of your intellect to figure out what she is trying to say that there are very, very few moments where you let your heart and soul to experience the poems in this collection. There is a foreword by her husband, Robert Montgomery (with which I have complaints about, as well) and it raises your expectation to a whole new level only for the poems to disappoint you. Maybe if there was no such foreword, I wouldn't have read this collection with high expectations and maybe, I would have been a bit less harsh about how I feel. The more pages I read, the more I became disappointed and my brain just shut down. It refused to do all the work in understanding these poems.

There are a few aspects that I liked as well: the length and the style of poems. I felt that the short poems made more sense and I felt that they were beautifully put out but I only found one of the long poems, 'When The Morning Comes', to be wonderfully written! I also loved "Tomorrow's Woman' but in 2 pieces, separately. I loved the new metaphors and I pray that in her next collection, she will encompass them in a way they need to be.

I believe in Greta's potential. I have a feeling that she will be one of the revolutionary poetess' of our time but she can only be one if she puts a bit work in crafting a poem as the lines feel out of the place. I might keep an eye out for her future works.
Just because I didn't enjoy this collection doesn't mean that you will not enjoy it as well. It is alright to give this a try.

Rating: 1.5/5

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an unusual collection of poetry.
The reader’s sense of embracing it is slightly lost in Robert Montgomery’s impassioned introduction. Someone who struggles to get to grips with understanding poems got some of what he was saying but left me grasping for meaning and a sense of reason. He implies that true poetry written in English should read like a translated piece from a magical language. Shorthand for gobbledygook is to be expected as it is art the mark of genius.
Well poetry often seems like a foreign tongue to me and without clarity there is little comprehension.
The more you read the better it seems and I remove myself from literary criticism and academic views and aim for what sounds good or verses I like.
With you tube I have found that often you can hear poets like Greta Bellamacina reading their work. This helps with rhythm and context and gives a more manageable bite to digest.
For me Stockholm Syndrome was clearer when I learned it was about her pregnancy and The Jungle was about the refugee camp in France but neither still satisfy me fully:
I like Seven Sisters as a whole poem, and Waiting Room Hands appealed to me and showed me that it was worth trying to understand Greta the poet more.

Some of her couplets resonate with me:
“the oceans are filled with reason
they reflect us in their wake.”
ABOVE WATER
‘Faraway I put the memory of you above water.
and send it out as a paper boat.’
“I don’t know how many times we’ve moved house
to find space for dreaming.”

I liked that the poems are grounded in London and that they reflect the person of the poet. I wish I understood all the classical references, the use of bird, flowers and colours - blue coms up a lot. 5 poems mention library or libraries so I wonder what this signifies other than I have fines to pay.

I enjoyed these poems; re-read and they’ll grow on me more but this isn’t my natural comfort zone. We should read more poetry here is another idea to begin that process.

[Kriti | Armed with A Book · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection starts with an introduction from Robert Montgomery where he says that for him, new poetry in English, should be free of the English language itself. He finds Greta's work to be this way. I would agree with him that the words that she uses and the imaginary she tries to project in the reader's mind is something out of the ordinary. However, the disadvantage of breaking away from normal writing is that it distances the people who love reading in it. A collection about motherhood, female identity, parenthood, I was fascinated by the concept but the poems themselves appeared disjoint to me.

The book is divided into four sections with each section housing its own collection of poems. I could not make sense of many of the poems, never mind relate them to the bigger theme. I am not even sure if the way I interpreted the poems I could understand were even supposed to be that way! There is one that I think talks about the possibility of dying at childbirth but as complicated as it is, I have no way of saying if that is what I wanted to take away from it or was the poem really about that? Come to think of it, something that leaves so much room for interpretation is unique in itself. I am usually able to visualize what is going on, and feel the sentiments being conveyed in poems, but this collection only brought that about ever so often.

Overall, this was a unique experience. I am thankful to the publisher and author for making an ARC available via NetGalley.

[The Lexington Bookie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I somehow managed to go almost a year without reading poetry, even though I have about seven collections on my TBR… so I was happy to break the streak with Tomorrow’s Woman. According to the publisher notes, this is Bellamacina’s first United States publication, with her distinct French and British influences.

The collection is broken into four sections: Tomorrow’s Woman, Pregnancy, Love, and Loss, Grief, and Thunder. There is an introduction by Robert Montgomery who instantly disects the uniqueness within Bellamacina’s poems, and gives insight to the reader about what you will experience as you read on. One of the things he notes is,

“I have believed passionately that poetry in English, to be new, needs to forget the English language as much as possible…Twenty years ago, I began to look for a poet who could do that- when I found Greta, I finally found that poet.”

This unique style of Bellamacina’s, however, is quite possibly something that the average dabbler in poetry (like myself) wouldn’t be able to “get”. I say this because, as I read through the collection, I kept thinking, I have no idea what she’s talking about. However, for the sake of this review, I’m going to give it my best interpretive shot.

Tomorrow’s Woman is the section about women’s oppression, and the will we have to move beyond it, to push through that figurative glass ceiling we always mention. Pregnancy is a little more obvious, discussing the miracle that is a woman’s body, discussing birth, rebirth, miscarriages, and other aspects of womanhood. Love recounts the obvious, of emotions and feelings surrounding love, being loved, and of heartbreak.
Loss, Grief, and Thunder is about life and death, and the whirlwind of personal relationships.

This collection covers topics that should be relatable to most women, but because of Bellamacina’s style, it’s really hard to comprehend what I’m supposed to be relating to. It feels as if the poetry has gotten lost in translation, or honestly as if she strung together some lofty, creative words to form a stanza that should create some sort of imagery, but it doesn’t- or not consistently enough for me. There are some lines that I did think were beautiful, or that caught my imagination, but the poems in their entirety did not leave a lasting overall impression.

In the end, this was a bit of a disappointment for my return to reading poetry. Although there were some lovely high points, they weren’t the majority of my reading experience.

[Giulia · Rating 2 out of 5]

First thing first, thank you very much to the publisher for sending me an e-ARC of this book.

First poetry collection of 2020 and I have to say: I was definitely not a fan.

For as much as I found some (the real minority) of sentences somewhat pretty, the great majority of these poems alienated me. This was an alienating experience and surely not a good one.

The metaphors just did not make sense to me, and I even found that some were repeated a bit too much. So they even lost their unicity pretty quick.

I could not relate to the struggle and the feelings depicted for (I think) two main reasons.
1. Some parts were simply not for me. There was a part in this collection that was centered around pregnancy, and I’m just not the targeted audience for this topic.
2. The metaphors (as I have mentioned) were complete nonsense.

Now, let me further discuss this.
I say the metaphors were nonsense because, to me, it felt as if the author put two words that they sounded beautifully together but that, in reality, they were anything but beautiful. They actually made no sense whatsoever.
I was more focused on understanding the metaphors and the overall feeling of the poem than actually enjoying the reading experience. And what a frustrating experience this was.
Also because, honestly, the metaphors I did understand were rather average, cliché and definitely not ground breaking.

So, all in all this was a complete and utter flop for me.
I did not enjoy it in the slightest and I found myself confused and detached.
Truth be told, I would not recommend this one :/

[Juliano · Rating 4 out of 5]

“When the morning comes / your love is a phantom future, / astonishing and gazing in its break.” Greta Bellamacina’s most recent poetry collection, Tomorrow’s Woman, takes as its primary focus modern womanhood, in all its gritty and glorious variety; opening with the titular poem, which wonders rather what womanhood might become, the collection moves through socio-historical representation to pregnant bodies to women in love; the second section, Pregnancy, is a poem series moving inexorably, gorgeously towards “a tide waiting to fill the shore”, and elsewhere in her poems she declares succinctly, mystically, “I body the poem of my body”. Her writing takes stock of the “weeping sewing machine”, and of “the sea / carrying anarchic oceans on her back.” There’s a deep well of beauty, as in ‘Perishing Tame’, ‘The Perseid Meteor Shower’, and ‘In The Morning, Penelope’: “The early light unaware of the low hum / that entwines the mood of the air, / strangely worshipping / in high memory cries.” And, ultimately, this collection’s greatest resource, Bellamacina’s conjurings of love, shapeshifting, ferocious in their devotion, and so evocative: “We live in one room / the BT Tower our lighthouse”, she writes; later, “I have nothing to give you but upside-down geraniums”; and, most starkly, “They looked like love, / they looked like us.”

[Maggie Chatterton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tomorrow's Woman by Greta Bellamacina is a collection of intriguing poetry. The poems within this collection was written in a style that I hadn't before encountered. The poems, while hard to decipher the personal meaning and symbolism, were interesting and made me pause to think about.
Of the poems, this section of a poem called The Jungle really spoke to me.

If we were to meet out of this time
seven dozing swans
rushing so quickly that we mistake them for paper.

And we know all the things, we know now
that the sun always pulls the light back

and we are always solared by our dreams,
sabotaging objects
killing quickly, and making us bored

and the gazing electrical shelters
have a home for us.

Despite not understanding a lot of what the poems meant, I enjoyed this collection immensely.

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Greta has been one of my favorite poets for so long, I'm so happy to have finally gotten my hands on her new collection - it's full of everything I love and admire about her poetry, and poetry written by females in general: love, light, female power, nature, and the magic of words. x

"You are reminded again of the sky,
a flower of dust, dancing like a snow globe
emptying out its possessions for you.

Before there was anything,
everything was hailing,
all our hearts were comets up in the sky
and everything was hailing."

[Alessia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

Greta Bellamacina's "Tomorrow's Woman" hasn't catch all my attention.

The collection is divided into four sections: Tomorrow’s Woman, Pregnancy, Love, and Loss, Grief, and Thunder.
Sometimes I had to stop reading or skip to something else to do. Maybe it was me that couldn't understand entirely the beauty of these poems.
I have appreciated the Tomorrow's Woman' section.
My approach to poetry is at the beginning and maybe, with another reading of this poetry collection.

[Kristiana · Rating 2 out of 5]

The poet John Burnside said that poetry always runs the risk of becoming convoluted when the poet toys with abstraction. This is this collection through and through - badly composed in regard to line breaks making a meld of dissonant images using vocabulary for the sake of being ‘out there’, different or abstract. The result is a collection that doesn’t resonate, isn’t memorable, and both the speaker and poet are lost in what reads like a thesaurus asked to write what they think a poem might be.

[thewoollygeek (tea, cake, crochet & books) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not really my style of poetry, I am not really the target audience I don’t think, or at least if it’s aimed at tomorrow’s women how about we focus a little less on pregnancy, maternity etc, yes I get women have babies but it’s not our sole purpose. I just didn’t find any kind of connection with the poems, nothing resonated with me and this is rare, some just didn’t make sense. Not for me sorry.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

[Chahna · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 Stars

I wish I understood it. Only a few poems stood out to me but everything else was just a lot of words, strung together, that were supposed to make some sense.
But hey, I liked some other things about the book. The cover for instance. The font. The formatting. lol

[Belle]

I'm sorry but unfortunately these poems really didn't resonate with me at all. I found a lot of them overly cryptic and just didn't 'get it'. Unfortunately it's just not a style of poetry that I could personally enjoy.

[J.D. DeHart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong poetry forms the basis of the creative freedom in this book. While it may not be for everyone, I deeply appreciate what this author has captured.

[Ajay Sawant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great's work is gorgeous. Its empowering and a few mentions of translations make it more aesthetic. Overall the entire collection is work every minute of read. A definite have in poetry shelf

[Megan Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Greta has powerful, beautiful imagery, of trees as star-pillars and meteors which rain down like tears, which would be lost without the reader’s ability to subvert their understanding." - Full review available at Have You Read This.

[seren✨ starrybooker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always appreciate when poetry goes all-out in its language and finds new ways to describe things that we live with and know- I’m not sure it always succeeds, but it definitely makes a swing for it

[Maria · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thanks to #NetGalley for the review copy of #TomorrowsWoman

This collection of poetry felt like it was trying too hard to come off as profound, deep, and complex. In most of the poems, the language usage seemed arbitrarily "unique" or "different" solely to give readers the impression that this is a special and unique text - almost like the author was aiming at surrealism but didn't quite hit the mark. The foreword also conveyed the impression that this was the goal of the author.

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poetry separated into four sections: Tomorrow's Woman; Pregnancy; Love; Loss, Grief & Thunder.

from Clear Water: "The trees hold out their hands above us // as to make the sky a crown, / and us their reigning destiny / two cathedrals lit up in a forest exposed to the night."

from The World is Moved by Love: "It moves an ink tree supersonic / bluer always and more real, turning like alchemy / rained up olav alive— / a villa of calligraphy squares."

[Rather.be.reading1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to the publisher for directly reaching out to read this one. I thought this was much longer than a typical book of poetry, but overall still good. Bellamacina writes in a style I have not come across yet, but I loved it and I really enjoyed the length of her poems (being not too long). One of my favorites was 'Clear Water'.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to the publisher for gifting me a review audiobook copy of Tomorrow’s Woman by Greta Bellamacina. I listened to this three times over, letting the words wash over me again and again. The author writes so beautifully, and read the poems herself on the audiobook version. I just couldn’t get enough.

If you’re a poetry lover, definitely get this one.