Daylight

by Roya Marsh

A crucial new voice explores sexuality, grief, and the resilience of the Black woman, in dayliGht, an unconventional debut poetry collection from Roya Marsh.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, LGBT, Audiobook, Fiction, Mental Health, Race

128 pages, Paperback

First published March 31, 2020

Reviews

[Sunny Lu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very slam poetry vibes. Loved the introduction. Black butch feminist survivor writing !!!!

[CJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

TW: rape, child abuse, suicide, domestic abuse, violence, racism

This is everything I hoped Milk and Honey would be. There were no platitudes, no simple truths. Every poem felt deliberate and powerful, meant to encourage and strengthen those who've been in similar situations while giving abusers no place to hide from the words. It's queer, it's black, it's incredible, and any and all fans of poetry who are looking for titles to add to their anti-racism TBR, this absolutely needs to be on it. Also, the audiobook is fantastic!

I recommend to high school and up.

[Marc Nash · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning! Video review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfJuy...

[Carlton Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

"silence is not just deadly
but the weapon itself
left at the scene of the crime
used to extinguish
generations
of black mental health issues
because black people don’t have
time for exhaustion//depression
we will do our work//massa’s work//
& still have time
to be slaves to our own
trauma"



WOW OH WOW! THIS WAS GREAT! These poems were so raw, so honest, so emotionally driven. The first few poems I weren't a fan of and it made think I wasn't going to enjoy this, but damn I was wrong. I'm so glad that I listened to the audiobook because it was read by the author and hearing from her voice made it so much better.

I wrote down the poems I liked and marked the ones I really liked with a star. I have numbers by them because that's the "chapter" the poems are for the audiobook:

12: In broad daylight, black saviors look grandma OR I think I built that wall myself OR my grandmother would never play craps

13: In broad daylight, black girls look gossip.

14: In broad daylight, suicidal black girls look guilty

**15: In broad daylight, black girls look grave

18: Black dykes look ground

19: Kinky black girls look gspot. ?

*20: Black daughters look greedy

21: Black girls look gleeful
"I don't owe anyone more joy than I owe myself

***23: Black girls look good enough to fuck

**26: Black women look grouchy

***27: Black bipolar girls looks grimy

*****28: Black victims look gagged (WOW)

30: Black MFA candidates look glamours

***33: Black sistas look glass
"When a stranger calls me Black dyke nigga bitch. I don't know where to insert comma, or know which name does the least damage because that's the one I'll turn into compliment"

34: Black dykes look Gamora

***39: Black abuse victims look gone

[Anne-Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

All the poems were good and some took my breath away.

Marsh has a real skill with imagery and I loved the way she tackled various subjects in her poems. Her poetry focuses on the intersections of being Black in America, womanhood, and queerness, and I appreciated the vulnerable glimpse into her life and thoughts throughout the collection.

Definitely recommend this collection!

Content warnings for references to molestation and abusive relationships, racism, sexism, and homophobia.

[Rosamund · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intense experience in both emotion and poetic style.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I think love is a hotel room
everything used
but new"

"my whole body
is a language—
& I'm begging you

learn it"

There are some real gut-punches in this short collection, for me the most poignant being some of the meditations on suicide and sexual violence. I thought the best poems were the ones that experimented most extremely with form. It's hard to critique such a raw, personal collection, but one quibble I did have while going through is that the "in broad dayliGht black _______s look g_____" titling conceit didn't always work for me, although the reasoning behind it was impactful — I guess I was eager for a bit more context-setting from the titles, and the constraint of this construction didn't always provide it. (I'm also just a sucker for creative titles. Having recently read Remedies for Disappearing, which is full of 'em, has probably biased me.) Overall, though, very much a small gripe that didn't materially affect my enjoyment of a powerful debut.

Unrelatedly, I'm going to start to keep a tally of how many times I see the phrase "clarion call" on the back of poetry books I'm reading. So far I think I'm at 4.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raw, honest, biographical poetry.

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars *may change

listening to the author perform her own poetry… mmm

[Kait · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a slow reader and usually don't read books, even poetry books, in one sitting. But I devoured this. Couldn't put it down. Roya has such a strong voice and approaches trauma and tough topics with both craft and accessibility. Vulnerable, evocative, intersectional, and impactful.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Captivating collection of poems. Highly recommend to everyone. Look forward to reading what Roya puts out next.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

cw: anti-Black racism, lesbophobia, rape, religious trauma, suicide

raw and powerful and beautiful. these resonated and challenged me, and I'm so glad I listened to the performance along with following the written words.

[Shan Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Trans butch story/mini memoir, I haven’t read anything like this before but a very important story. Well written and poetic.

[Medusa :)]

Trigger warnings: depression, suicide, rape, abuse, homophobia


Whoa. This feels personal to me on the depression and suicide parts the author discusses. I listened to the audiobook and it was narrated by the author and I could hear her pain and her emotions she was going through while having to relive what these poems discussed. It was hard to listen to, but at the same time I couldn’t stop listening to it because it just flowed easily together. This is such an amazing collection and I’m at a loss for words.

[Nikki Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

HARD! The poems were hard, were raw, were reflective of what it is to be Black and woman and queer. I appreciate Roya Marsh for letting us in on her lived experience and being vulnerable and self-aware enough to share her trauma and mental health with us. There is nowhere to run from her truth, no lighthearted places to recover; it is all in. Surrounds you and forces you to hold your hands up, take a step back, and slow clap for a job well done.

[Courtney Ferriter · Rating 5 out of 5]

** 5 stars **

A gripping and compulsively readable debut collection that examines what it means to be queer, Black, butch, and a woman. Marsh powerfully merges experimental forms with her own lived experience here. I can't wait to see what she writes next.

"corpses in crosswalks
rising to the hudson surface
swinging from trees
you can't metaphor modern-day lynchings
when there are actually modern-day lynchings."
- from "in broad dayliGht black stars look like gyrochronology"

[Ari · Rating 5 out of 5]

"for the record, we all start out sucking titties for survival. some of us are still surviving"

"my mother calls me fearless. my father doesnt call"

[Nadia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an incredibly moving and joyful and thoughtful and angry work, and every bit of it worked for me. I listened to this as an Audiobook for the 2020 ReadHarder challenge, and it was truly a challenge for me. Part of the joy of reading poetry, for me, is seeing the words, saying them out loud myself. It is an art form unto itself. But hearing the author read these poems gave it something I never could have, and the depth and emotion of her voice, the repetition interspersed, all made for an experience unlike any other poetry reading I've encountered.
I did wish, sometimes, that I had the text in front of me as well, just because of the way I read and process poetry. I often pause. If a particular line or phrase really speaks to me I stop for a moment to consider it. There wasn't space to do that while listening to the poems, because although I could have paused the audiobook, I didn't want to interrupt her. I didn't want to silence her in any way. I listened to the entire collection through in one listening, and will definitely be revisiting it. Perhaps even pausing.

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won a copy of dayliGht as a part of a Goodreads giveaway. This has not affected my review, which I am writing voluntarily.
___

dayliGht by Roya Marsh is my new favorite book of poetry! This collection is so powerful—more so than I could ever express in words, especially as a white person. dayliGht tackles many themes but arguably most central to the book is Roya Marsh’s identity as a black dyke. Other major themes (although it’s hard to call them “other” themes as all the themes are so intertwined) include misogyny, sexual assault, racism, guns/gun violence, black mental health, misogynoir, suicide, death, trauma, healing, religion, God, and Christianity. I can not recommend this book enough; go read it and go read it now!

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unsparing, personal introspection and uninhibited, societal criticism brilliantly balance themselves out in dayliGht. It is a full diapason, richly exploring butch-ness, Blackness, queerness, trauma, joy, truth, and more, in less than 100 pages. And while as a “reviewer,” I cannot speak to representation in this text, Roya Marsh certainly can and does so sharply in her introduction to this book—clearly marking her considerations and goals in writing this collection, and prompting wonder and curiosity for her reader.

Whether it’s in the jarring, inked rectangles of redactions; the teasing play of text alignment, creating a shadow of palimpsest from the reverse side of the page; clever quiz formatting; full blocks of a single, repeated word; or pointed font changes, this collection skillfully and authentically utilizes a rich toolbox for the crafting of words. In this way, it is some of the most satisfying poetry I’ve ever read.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Anna Mosca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a brutal, painful book, a voice much needed and I praise the author for it. The audio well serve the parts where she repeats the insults hurled at her to the point that you became her and want to shout, stop! While she describe facts and the pain she undergo she is also able to voice out what our mind constantly tell us, obsessively, the words that nail us. Well described “the tribe of Jesus” and shortly after the Jesus she knows. She touches her pain and delivers it. This book really touched me, in an uncomfortable way at times, others it was just so right on about what women go thru and have to hear. I do recommend it!

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

(2021 - #16, audiobook)
1) Fiercely topical and frank
2) Black, LGBT, feminist
3) Brutal, boisterous...beautiful
Enjoyment: 4

"They do not sweat when they grab their gun.
I do not sweat when I grab my pen.
The difference is in our bullets."
-from poem: "In Broad dayliGht Black Moms Look Grieving"

The audiobook is read by the author...Words that are meant to be performed.
Did not see the print version - curious about the look of the visual words on the page and the intended symbolism.

Thoughtful, honed anger being used to ignite purpose and actualized agency. Marsh strips identity and representation bare. Hearing her deliver her poetry is both fire and fuel to a way forward and no longer in ashes.

[Lina · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW. What a great book of poetry, a new fave poet of mine. I tagged so many poems to return to, to check out videos of Roya Marsh performing. I can't wait to re-visit this collection.

Marsh covers everything - being a gay Black woman, sexual violence, physical violence, love, loss, matriarchs, abuse within queer relationships, familial love and bond. You'll feel all of the feelings, which to me what poetry is about.

[Dar · Rating 5 out of 5]

The experiences in the poems are made vivid. She confronts her abusers and owns her own history. She has found ways to get through pain; not least in writing it. I like how she draws in people you've heard of (in the news, in music, in pop culture) and they seem just as real as people in her family. Because they are real! She sees everyone as a fully-wrought individual, good or bad or any combination, and gives herself the same attention.

[Deanna Whitlow · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of my reading goals this year is to read outside of my normal genres of fiction, memoir, and literary criticism. So this was a solid poetry collection to start with!

There were some stunning poems in there (the line “i just carry my void on my shoulders” is beyond gorgeous) and so admire the nuanced discussion of blackness, queerness, and womanhood, but something about the cadence that poets who typically do spoken word does not always work for me.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

[2020] notes to self…Powerful, urgent, bold, timely, raw…not doing it justice but it’s all I’ve got. I didn’t “get” all of them, as per usual with me and poetry, but it didn’t matter, the message was always crystal clear. Marsh performing the poems on audiobook as I read along made for poetry magic.

[Timothy Arliss OBrien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daylight by Roya Marsh is an exceptional book of poems that pushes the reader to understand her perspective as a black queer woman. This gem of a book leaves no part of her lived experience simple but uncovers layer after layer of her life until you are confronted with the raw, honest truth of what it means to be marginalized in society.

[Sarah Koppelkam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Roya Marsh’s biographical poems are so complex that this is not a collection that I can categorize as about any one thing. Marsh’s poetry is extremely smart, down to the titles, and the way she plays with words and metaphors is masterful. Would read anything she writes next.

“I’ve been carrying the sun on my spine, intending to light the way for the ones who stayed”

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my. I loved, loved, loved these poems. The poet is brilliant: a prophet, an artist, a word genie - I don’t know how I can praise this more. She is spectacular. She tells a story, reveals a world, often hidden right in front of our eyes. More than anyone I have read she has made the invisible, visible. I love it!

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me gustan todas estas colecciones de poesía con tanta presencia autobiográfica. En este caso, creo que gana mucho escuchar a la misma autora recitar los poemas porque les pone la emoción real.

Para mí tendría muchos más puntos si no hubiese tantos comentarios cisnormativos.