How I Get Ready

by Ashleigh Young

In her new poetry collection How I Get Ready, Ashleigh Young fails to learn to drive, vanishes from the fossil record, and finally finishes writing a book.

Cover by Sam Duckor-Jones



Ashleigh Young is the author of the poetry collection Magnificent Moon (VUP, 2012), and the essay collection Can You Tolerate This? (VUP, 2016) which won a Windham-Campbell Prize from Yale University and the Royal Society Te Apārangi Award for General Non-Fiction in 2017. She works as an editor and lives in Wellington.

Genres: Poetry

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2019

Reviews

[Jenna Heller · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really looking forward to this collection and after each poem I found myself feeling let down. I adored Ashleigh’s essay collection; the way she turns a phrase and finds an unusual but precise and bang-on metaphor or simile is astounding and immensely satisfying. And there are plenty of those in this collection. But. After nearly every poem, I was left thinking that it needed one more edit with attention to an overwriting tendency that I, myself, am all too familiar with. In fact, I found myself liking most of the poems so much more minus the last few lines. There is an awkward redundancy of key points and/or a distrust in the reader’s ability to get it. It makes me wonder if her editor was afraid to challenge.

I was also very frustrated with the book’s design and reckon it ought to have been taller or smaller to better accommodate the poems whose last lines or stanzas required a turn of the page, which further highlighted the sense that the poems needed to end sooner, pre-page turn. A better choice in size and shape by VUP would have addressed this issue and maybe helped the poems work better for readers?

My favourite poem of the collection is the title piece as it feels finished and not in need of a further edit. I suspect in time Ashleigh, herself, may return to these poems with a chisel to fine tune.

Given that some of these poems found homes in journals, clearly my view is not shared and that makes me wonder if I am actually really missing something.

[Keen Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

This reads like a series of scattered words and random thoughts, thrown to the winds and left to see where they land and if they’ll take. I understand that poetry, like any art form is a very personal thing. But I suppose I’m wondering at what point do cryptic confessions and vague ambiguities amount to poetry?...Where’s that mystical, magical threshold?...Maybe I should write a poem about it?...

[Simon Sweetman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A poet of rare ability and huge regard. A treat to read the new offerings. She's an amazing talent.

[Sophie · Rating 5 out of 5]

absolutely good

[Francis Cooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

oooOOOoooOOOoooOOOooo

[Susie Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

a very good book of poems that I love.

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection as a whole seems immature and like it could have been done with some more editing. There are often poems that seem just silly. Others have a more serious, soft tone, similar to Mary Oliver -- like her, the speaker pays specific attention to the natural world, like in the poems "Everything" and "Turkey"
Some lines that are liked were "Sometimes my neighbor's crying / sounds like music and sometimes it sounds like confession. ... Sometimes my crying feels like paperwork and / sometimes it feels like an argument / bleeding through my earplugs." and "if I can't see your face it is only because my face / is pressed into your shoulder." and "You carry yourself / like birds on your own shoulders / distracted only / by someone holding you now / as if you were made of paper / as if you were bats in houses."

[Brecon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favourite collection I’ve read but still some surprising poems and a few standout lines like:

‘How the green makes the valley look more muscular / Like breathing makes the heart more comprehensible.’

‘She is fine in small doses, we say of our mothers / but I crave big doses, an IV flooding me with her words of praise.’

‘My aloneness is a towel that has a wētā sleeping in it / I want to roll it up and protect it / but I want someone else to do it’

[Tracee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book in a giveaway on the National Poetry Day Facebook page. I really enjoyed reading it. It had me at times laughing, nodding along to the observations, and discussing with my family the softness of our cat.

[Ashley Lamont · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will be honest, some of these poems I didn't get and some I did. My personal favorites being Reception, Driving, If So How, Feedback, Dandelions, Process, Lifted, Unspeakable Love, Hero Vegetable and How I Get Ready

[Bruce Hamill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved lots of these poems. Preached a sermon around one of them. Insightful, accessible, often funny.

[gabrielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

to me this anthology felt like a strangely absurd and comforting deep dive into the little things of life. the strange metaphors we cook up in our brains that seem so far-fetched yet fit almost perfectly.

[Chanel Chapters]

Dandelions

[Celeritas2 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved contents and Reception particularly. All are stunning and challenging.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good.