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Poets Out Loud
My Daily Actions, or The Meteorites
My Daily Actions, or The Meteorites is the result of a daily investigative writing practice, in which I was worried that a poem invested in the particulars of my life would be uninteresting--that the "ordinary" would be mundane. Instead memory, dreams, and the associative power of the imagination filled each moment with meaning, each tv show I watched or friend I spoke with, each outfit I wore or nail polish color I chose. In these poems, a combination of dread (for something approaching) and anxiety (for what might be approaching but isn't yet known) undid a sense of the present separate from climate change, global racial capitalism, whiteness, and gender-based violence, especially as I wrote as I tried to find out how my own gender fit into the world. The prose poem is the vehicle by which a recording practice ("journaling") meets the associative power of the poem.
- GenresPoetry
88 pages, Paperback
Published September 1, 2020
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113 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
October 4, 2020
Dreamlike, surreal poetry that just wasn't the right fit for me. I'm sure the crazy logic and image parings would spark some interesting unconscious connections for some readers, but I just found it all a bit tedious. Not the right book for me right now.
**Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
**Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
May 20, 2020
My Daily Actions, or The Meteorites was not exactly my cup of tea. I did enjoy the descriptive ingenuity the author embraced. Simple day to day interactions came alive in brilliant technicolor.
I do applaud creativity and I'm sure this work of art will have a following.
Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and S. Brook Corfman for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I do applaud creativity and I'm sure this work of art will have a following.
Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and S. Brook Corfman for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
May 4, 2020
You can read this review and others like it on my blog
Corfman’s book is filled with prose poetry, arranged like something between a diary and a story. These poems are intensely personal and, in a way, I felt like a voyuer while reading them. There is an underlying feeling of anxiety, worry over internal and external events. Worry of the current state of the world, wondering how this world might end.
A repeated motif in this collection of poetry is, surprisingly, Sailor Moon. I watched Sailor Moon when I was younger and understood these references, but I feel like if someone who was totally a stranger to anime came across the poems they would be confused by all the references.
All together, this collection feels intimate, like you are close to the poet or are spying on their innermost thoughts. Corfman’s language is lovely and the images they invoke linger off the pages. I felt like everything fit together well and that there was a coherent narrative behind the lines.
I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of poetry and, reading it now, I felt my own anxieties echoed.
Corfman’s book is filled with prose poetry, arranged like something between a diary and a story. These poems are intensely personal and, in a way, I felt like a voyuer while reading them. There is an underlying feeling of anxiety, worry over internal and external events. Worry of the current state of the world, wondering how this world might end.
A repeated motif in this collection of poetry is, surprisingly, Sailor Moon. I watched Sailor Moon when I was younger and understood these references, but I feel like if someone who was totally a stranger to anime came across the poems they would be confused by all the references.
All together, this collection feels intimate, like you are close to the poet or are spying on their innermost thoughts. Corfman’s language is lovely and the images they invoke linger off the pages. I felt like everything fit together well and that there was a coherent narrative behind the lines.
I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of poetry and, reading it now, I felt my own anxieties echoed.
May 30, 2020
This collection takes the reader through author's "daily actions" but in fact it is a compressed pile of Synesthesia, full of emotions, traces of pain, brooding, and exploring. I like the style, the very keen perspective, the Synesthesia, the combination of colours and senses, the ability of creating a kind of kingdom that is colourful, painful and in the meanwhile, meaningful for readers. However, sometimes there is a feeling of too vague, and less structured collection, at least a bit of explanation would be nice.
February 2, 2021
so, so good 💥
August 21, 2020
3.5 stars
Thank you NetGalley for giving me an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
My Daily Actions, or the Meteorites is a poetry collection about the struggle towards a sense of self that feels genuine. As a collection of prose poems, it stands out for its almost stream-of-consciousness approach which often gifts the reader with memorable lines.
As a whole, my experience with this collection was positive. I often found myself entranced by the language use. Personally, though, it wasn’t quite what I look for in a poetry collection.
Due to its stream-of-consciousness writing style, I struggled to find meaning in the poems. I don’t always find it necessary to understand or “get” what a poem is trying to say, but my frustration lay in how I felt like I could almost grasp meaning, but it slipped through my fingers.
Still. The writing was beautiful. I often found myself feeling like the words were a caress against my skin. They felt intimate, like someone was whispering each poem in my ear. It was lovely.
My favorite thing about this collection, I guess, is its exploration of gender. The poems seem full of an ever-present struggle to not only understand but also embrace gender identity. It’s stuck in my head how the author talks about this process feeling almost infantilizing. It makes me think of how often we’re expected to have our identity, especially if it’s a queer identity, figured out from a young age. For some, that it is the case, but not for all. So, although I don’t feel quite the same, I understand feeling like you’re sort of rendered child-like when you’re exploring your identity and sense of self.
Ultimately, although I enjoyed reading this collection, I don’t see it sticking with me for long. It was beautiful, but it just wasn’t the kind of writing that hooks itself onto me and refuses to let go.
Thank you NetGalley for giving me an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
My Daily Actions, or the Meteorites is a poetry collection about the struggle towards a sense of self that feels genuine. As a collection of prose poems, it stands out for its almost stream-of-consciousness approach which often gifts the reader with memorable lines.
As a whole, my experience with this collection was positive. I often found myself entranced by the language use. Personally, though, it wasn’t quite what I look for in a poetry collection.
Due to its stream-of-consciousness writing style, I struggled to find meaning in the poems. I don’t always find it necessary to understand or “get” what a poem is trying to say, but my frustration lay in how I felt like I could almost grasp meaning, but it slipped through my fingers.
Still. The writing was beautiful. I often found myself feeling like the words were a caress against my skin. They felt intimate, like someone was whispering each poem in my ear. It was lovely.
My favorite thing about this collection, I guess, is its exploration of gender. The poems seem full of an ever-present struggle to not only understand but also embrace gender identity. It’s stuck in my head how the author talks about this process feeling almost infantilizing. It makes me think of how often we’re expected to have our identity, especially if it’s a queer identity, figured out from a young age. For some, that it is the case, but not for all. So, although I don’t feel quite the same, I understand feeling like you’re sort of rendered child-like when you’re exploring your identity and sense of self.
Ultimately, although I enjoyed reading this collection, I don’t see it sticking with me for long. It was beautiful, but it just wasn’t the kind of writing that hooks itself onto me and refuses to let go.
March 8, 2022
Corfman’s prose poems move through the language of outer space, current news and climate change dread, and their fears and frustrations / new obsessions and openings. They dwell often in the minutia, walking through the apartment, observing hair grow or a spider descend / “the steeping tea marks the feeling of waiting.” Though written prior, it echoes a pandemic feeling, in the same spaces and attuned to those spaces, aware of anxieties and jumping to another thought (“One question is about how much can be willed into the world, and whether this is a form of activism or deadly distraction.”). In this waiting, Coffman grapples with their gender in the world, what space a body occupies. On the murder of a trans woman: “It is hard to talk about. And yet I have filled a notebook.” It is a deeply personal and intimate space they allow us into with this book, and so it calls for your full attention. Some of my favorite lines:
“I, too, do not look closely at the shapes I contain, only the paths I send outward.”
“I am not describing my day well, but I am not trying to escape it either.”
“I, too, do not look closely at the shapes I contain, only the paths I send outward.”
“I am not describing my day well, but I am not trying to escape it either.”
February 5, 2022
“A meteor,” S. Brook Corfman tells us in the last stanza of “Premonition,” “is only the action, the burning up,” of the meteoroid, as opposed to the “meteorite” which, according to NASA, is the meteoroid that hits the earth. In Corfman’s second full length collection, My Daily Actions, or The Meteorites, a series of untitled prose poems styled as daily journal entries meditate on gender, meaning-making, and ecological decline. In language that is quietly authoritative, Corfman prepares us for both meteor and meteorite, revealing flare after beautiful flare, attuning us to the coming impact.
Read more at RHINO: https://rhinopoetry.org/reviews/my-da...
Read more at RHINO: https://rhinopoetry.org/reviews/my-da...
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April 19, 2020I DNF'ed this one. I guess this book was okay? I can see how personal it was for the author, but I don't think it's for me.
It's sort of hard for me to judge because I was mostly confused reading it. I understood the emotion of it more than what the poems were actually saying and talking about. It was stream of consciousness mostly, but in a jumbled way to me. Perhaps there is someone more suited than me to understand this.
Because it was so personal to the author, I don't feel comfortable rating this book.
It's sort of hard for me to judge because I was mostly confused reading it. I understood the emotion of it more than what the poems were actually saying and talking about. It was stream of consciousness mostly, but in a jumbled way to me. Perhaps there is someone more suited than me to understand this.
Because it was so personal to the author, I don't feel comfortable rating this book.
April 16, 2020
I received a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
An incredible collection born from a wonderful concept of investigative writing. It's a fascinating reading experience to turn each page and see how the author has created such sincere, dynamic pieces.
An incredible collection born from a wonderful concept of investigative writing. It's a fascinating reading experience to turn each page and see how the author has created such sincere, dynamic pieces.
September 6, 2020
Literary work to love. I recommend this book as a consideration of the beauty of language. There is much to appreciate here.
June 18, 2024
This is an absolutely brilliant, dreamy poetry collection that treats the subjects it covers with so much grace. I will definitely be revisiting it.
November 16, 2024
DNFed I believe this is too intellectual for me and I was not engaged...
September 8, 2023
A collection of free association, dream-like prose poems.
from Apparent Corona: "How is it a virus is not contagious. / Little bloom. / Little archipelago under the skin. / I google thrush, I google anxious death."
from Col Meteor: "I worry we are / talking about the impending ecological disaster instead of the current one. I worry we / are talking about the impending ecological disaster instead of [ ]."
from Apparent Corona: "How is it a virus is not contagious. / Little bloom. / Little archipelago under the skin. / I google thrush, I google anxious death."
from Col Meteor: "I worry we are / talking about the impending ecological disaster instead of the current one. I worry we / are talking about the impending ecological disaster instead of [ ]."
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews