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Seeing the Body: Poems
Poems and photographs collide in this intimate collection, challenging the invisible, indefinable ways mourning takes up residence in a body, both before and after life-altering loss.
In radiant poems—set against the evocative and desperate backdrop of contemporary events, pop culture, and politics—Rachel Eliza Griffiths reckons with her mother’s death, aging, authority, art, black womanhood, memory, and the American imagination. The poems take shape in the space where public and private mourning converge, finding there magic and music alongside brutality and trauma. Griffiths braids a moving narrative of identity and its possibilities for rebirth through image and through loss.
A photographer as well as a poet, Griffiths accompanies the fierce rhythm of her verses with a series of ghostly, imaginative self-portraits, blurring the body’s internal wilderness with landscapes alive with beauty and terror. The collision of text and imagery offers an associative autobiography, in which narratives of language, absence, and presence are at once saved, revised, and often erased. Seeing the Body dismantles personal and public masks of silence and self-destruction to visualize and celebrate the imperfect freedom of radical self-love.
In radiant poems—set against the evocative and desperate backdrop of contemporary events, pop culture, and politics—Rachel Eliza Griffiths reckons with her mother’s death, aging, authority, art, black womanhood, memory, and the American imagination. The poems take shape in the space where public and private mourning converge, finding there magic and music alongside brutality and trauma. Griffiths braids a moving narrative of identity and its possibilities for rebirth through image and through loss.
A photographer as well as a poet, Griffiths accompanies the fierce rhythm of her verses with a series of ghostly, imaginative self-portraits, blurring the body’s internal wilderness with landscapes alive with beauty and terror. The collision of text and imagery offers an associative autobiography, in which narratives of language, absence, and presence are at once saved, revised, and often erased. Seeing the Body dismantles personal and public masks of silence and self-destruction to visualize and celebrate the imperfect freedom of radical self-love.
144 pages, Hardcover
First published June 23, 2020
22 people are currently reading
791 people want to read
About the author
Rachel Eliza Griffiths
13 books119 followersRachel Eliza Griffiths is a multi-media artist, poet, and novelist.
She received the MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and is the recipient of numerous fellowships including Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Kimbilio, Cave Canem Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Millay Colony, and Yaddo.
Her literary and visual work has been widely published in journals, magazines, anthologies, and periodicals including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Times, Best American Poetry 2020, and many others. Griffiths is widely known for her literary portraits, fine art photography, and lyric videos.
She received the MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and is the recipient of numerous fellowships including Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Kimbilio, Cave Canem Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Millay Colony, and Yaddo.
Her literary and visual work has been widely published in journals, magazines, anthologies, and periodicals including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Times, Best American Poetry 2020, and many others. Griffiths is widely known for her literary portraits, fine art photography, and lyric videos.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
July 1, 2020
Rachel Eliza Griffith’s hybrid poetry & photo collection, “Seeing The Body" is a luminous exploration of grief, black womanhood, somatic memory, and radical self-love. Written for her late mother, these poems and photos reckon with mourning and daughterhood through a tender, transformative lens. Here is one of my favorite excerpts:
“How awful to have such
wonder. The final way wonder itself
opened beneath my mother’s face
at the last moment. As if she was
a small girl kneeling in a puddle
& looking at her face for the first time,
her fingers gripping the loud,
wet rim of the universe.”
“How awful to have such
wonder. The final way wonder itself
opened beneath my mother’s face
at the last moment. As if she was
a small girl kneeling in a puddle
& looking at her face for the first time,
her fingers gripping the loud,
wet rim of the universe.”
March 7, 2021
I have a practice of reading a poem aloud every morning. I've been doing this for almost three years now, reading the words into the air, sitting with them as the sun rises. I've had various experiences with this practice, but none quite like reading Seeing the Body aloud. As a collection that punctures the heart of trauma and grief, I found reading it aloud profoundly moving. Griffiths's writing is elegiac, luminous, memorable. I have a habit of putting asterisks next to poems I really love. Let's just say that the Contents page of Griffiths's collection is studded with starts. This is a book that I plan to hold close, always, to revisit again and again.
July 12, 2020
I found Griffiths style to be a bit of a departure from my other poetry reads this year. A little grittier, sharper, more direct. Accessible, but still layered.
This collection is split into two parts, with the first largely dealing with the death of her mother. While beautiful and touching, I connected the least with the poems in this section until I got to Paradise and then me and this collection really clicked.
I love that Griffiths included an interlude between parts 1 and 2 to showcase some of her photography collections and I loved the nod to these photographs in Husband.
The second part of this collection, I found a little more diverse in themes. A couple of standouts for me were her poems on race and slavery: Color Theory & Praxis (I) and (II), Whipping Tree, and Good America, Good Acts. As well as, Who By Fire, which I suspect I'd appreciate even more if I were more familiar with Leonard Cohen's poetry.
By a long shot, the poem that hit hardest for me in this collection was My Rapes.
Much appreciated the lighter poems sprinkled throughout. Good Food being a particularly sweet, nostalgic piece, that I was desperately in need of at that point in the collection.
A collection I will definitely be returning to in the future.
This collection is split into two parts, with the first largely dealing with the death of her mother. While beautiful and touching, I connected the least with the poems in this section until I got to Paradise and then me and this collection really clicked.
I love that Griffiths included an interlude between parts 1 and 2 to showcase some of her photography collections and I loved the nod to these photographs in Husband.
The second part of this collection, I found a little more diverse in themes. A couple of standouts for me were her poems on race and slavery: Color Theory & Praxis (I) and (II), Whipping Tree, and Good America, Good Acts. As well as, Who By Fire, which I suspect I'd appreciate even more if I were more familiar with Leonard Cohen's poetry.
By a long shot, the poem that hit hardest for me in this collection was My Rapes.
Much appreciated the lighter poems sprinkled throughout. Good Food being a particularly sweet, nostalgic piece, that I was desperately in need of at that point in the collection.
A collection I will definitely be returning to in the future.
May 24, 2024
This year I’ve been endlessly searching for guidance through the treacherous pass of motherloss. This collection of poems and photographs felt like a respite from the loneliness of that hunt.
———————————————————————————
“For years after she died I lived along a gold, raw edge of Maybe or Maybe Not. I kept asking: Could I have ever saved her? I only mean that some days I was certain there was nothing left after she died that could fill the hollows in me. I wanted to know how I could drown my Ishmael of memory. Lift my life out of my mother’s mute grave. Nothing to surround my heart, which turned & kicked like something orphaned in its cradle. Red-veined rage burning itself blue with screaming.”
“A young black mother scrubbing love songs across the drama of ordinary life. Her eyes sparkled from soap, longing, lack, & tears she never shared. She fed us her ghost stories while fading inside her body, her beliefs. We chewed hope, fear, rage. Her soul music cleaned us raw & good. All those days scraped with a sad future that was gaining on us like a voice.”
“Love is whatever you think you can carry from your childhood without breaking your heart.”
“This is my new mother who has finally admitted fear into the raw ward of her heart. This is my mother who flew away from my grasp in the tunnel without end. The woman who could not wait for me to grab the white edge of where she was going. I was afraid, she says. Looking over the rim of her plastic cup, she shakes the world.”
“Blank & courteous, my uninsurable mind would come back to the same idea: my mother is going to live because she is just going to live. & you know I would begin the list again, revising the mercy of the God I knew. I dreamt in the hideous chapel. Prayers drying desperately on my lips. I’d rub balm against my mother’s mouth, hold the straw while she barely sipped, shaking her girlish head if the water wasn’t cold enough. Then the pain gripped us too in the irritated drip beneath her quiet voice.”
“I believed & believed if I took more care with her life there would be a god who cared more than the god who did not think about our bodies, about the divine grief of daughters, about my mother, or the ache in these stanzas, these too-thin veins that still river our lives in blood.”
“Death moved like honey, slowly unmaking the flower of my mother while she died.”
“Afterwards, emptied & emptying, I stood near a window & looked down at the naked world my mother loved so much she smiled as she was leaving the empire of her body. Even now she is still making me. What love cannot colonize it burns. My mother’s maiden name is a verb: Pray.”
“Please say in the afterlife you’ve given my mother something to do. This talk of rest & peace would make her chuckle. Say Yeah Right, if it isn’t one thing in this life it’s the next. So maybe death isn’t one thing except that death is, only saying everything once with a raised voice. My mother got up every time she almost died & said she had too much work to do.”
“They asked me was it a Good Death, was it a Good Death? Was there peace for all of us? Why should I want peace instead of my Mother?”
———————————————————————————
“For years after she died I lived along a gold, raw edge of Maybe or Maybe Not. I kept asking: Could I have ever saved her? I only mean that some days I was certain there was nothing left after she died that could fill the hollows in me. I wanted to know how I could drown my Ishmael of memory. Lift my life out of my mother’s mute grave. Nothing to surround my heart, which turned & kicked like something orphaned in its cradle. Red-veined rage burning itself blue with screaming.”
“A young black mother scrubbing love songs across the drama of ordinary life. Her eyes sparkled from soap, longing, lack, & tears she never shared. She fed us her ghost stories while fading inside her body, her beliefs. We chewed hope, fear, rage. Her soul music cleaned us raw & good. All those days scraped with a sad future that was gaining on us like a voice.”
“Love is whatever you think you can carry from your childhood without breaking your heart.”
“This is my new mother who has finally admitted fear into the raw ward of her heart. This is my mother who flew away from my grasp in the tunnel without end. The woman who could not wait for me to grab the white edge of where she was going. I was afraid, she says. Looking over the rim of her plastic cup, she shakes the world.”
“Blank & courteous, my uninsurable mind would come back to the same idea: my mother is going to live because she is just going to live. & you know I would begin the list again, revising the mercy of the God I knew. I dreamt in the hideous chapel. Prayers drying desperately on my lips. I’d rub balm against my mother’s mouth, hold the straw while she barely sipped, shaking her girlish head if the water wasn’t cold enough. Then the pain gripped us too in the irritated drip beneath her quiet voice.”
“I believed & believed if I took more care with her life there would be a god who cared more than the god who did not think about our bodies, about the divine grief of daughters, about my mother, or the ache in these stanzas, these too-thin veins that still river our lives in blood.”
“Death moved like honey, slowly unmaking the flower of my mother while she died.”
“Afterwards, emptied & emptying, I stood near a window & looked down at the naked world my mother loved so much she smiled as she was leaving the empire of her body. Even now she is still making me. What love cannot colonize it burns. My mother’s maiden name is a verb: Pray.”
“Please say in the afterlife you’ve given my mother something to do. This talk of rest & peace would make her chuckle. Say Yeah Right, if it isn’t one thing in this life it’s the next. So maybe death isn’t one thing except that death is, only saying everything once with a raised voice. My mother got up every time she almost died & said she had too much work to do.”
“They asked me was it a Good Death, was it a Good Death? Was there peace for all of us? Why should I want peace instead of my Mother?”
July 6, 2025
3.5 stars
December 9, 2020
Poetry is still so subjective...I'm still trying to figure it out...but there were a few in here that really moved me like "Good Mother." It's the one that made me cry.
March 11, 2021
I'm small little bitch baby, so I cried.
Before I get into it; Rachel, who gave you the right to write so beautifully?
This was great like oh my god. All the poems were just so emotionally saturated and genuine, I just had to read all of them out loud. Something I actually really liked is that all of the poems were very accessible, in the sense that none of them felt too cryptic or like I had to pull out an analysis or an interview to understand what was going on. At the same time, they were beautifully layered, so that underneath the story that the reader can understand the poems were beautifully constructed, and grew beyond what was written on the paper.
The emotions in this collection, just like the themes, were very varied but all very raw. There was nostalgia, pain, trauma, loneliness, love, happiness, grief, and just holy shit. The poetry and photographs handle themes of grief, self-love, black womanhood, racism, and so forth. Reading this was just 11/10.
I loved so many of the poems, though some stood out a lot. For example, My Rapes was specifically hard-hitting (obviously from the subject matter, but also from how it was written and constructed, I loved it), both Good Mother and Chosen Family made me cry like a baby (probably my favourite poems in the collection), and Husband was just kinda sad. Also, the book is divided into two sections, and I kinda liked the second one more, but the first one is still fuckin' great.
Also, the way the photographs connected to and enriched the poetry was beautiful. In conclusion, am I glad I read this.
TL;DR - want poetry? Read this.
Before I get into it; Rachel, who gave you the right to write so beautifully?
This was great like oh my god. All the poems were just so emotionally saturated and genuine, I just had to read all of them out loud. Something I actually really liked is that all of the poems were very accessible, in the sense that none of them felt too cryptic or like I had to pull out an analysis or an interview to understand what was going on. At the same time, they were beautifully layered, so that underneath the story that the reader can understand the poems were beautifully constructed, and grew beyond what was written on the paper.
The emotions in this collection, just like the themes, were very varied but all very raw. There was nostalgia, pain, trauma, loneliness, love, happiness, grief, and just holy shit. The poetry and photographs handle themes of grief, self-love, black womanhood, racism, and so forth. Reading this was just 11/10.
I loved so many of the poems, though some stood out a lot. For example, My Rapes was specifically hard-hitting (obviously from the subject matter, but also from how it was written and constructed, I loved it), both Good Mother and Chosen Family made me cry like a baby (probably my favourite poems in the collection), and Husband was just kinda sad. Also, the book is divided into two sections, and I kinda liked the second one more, but the first one is still fuckin' great.
Also, the way the photographs connected to and enriched the poetry was beautiful. In conclusion, am I glad I read this.
TL;DR - want poetry? Read this.
January 8, 2023
A beautiful, emotional journey of a woman’s relationship with her mother and herself and who we become when we no longer have our mother to shape, feed and bleed for us. Tears were shed over emotions and relationships I have with not only my mother but other women in my life, and for the emotions and relationships I hope to have.
March 8, 2025
a bit too straightforward for my taste. I don't like poems telling me what they are or what they seek to be, I'd like to figure it out for myself through metaphors and hidden meanings
June 23, 2020
Three things I’ve heard in the most recent years:
“Poetry is dead. No one writes good poetry anymore.”
“It’s all Spoken Word these days.”
“The only poetry out there today is stuff like Rupi Kaur and Atticus, and it’s garbage.”
Three things you’ll realize are completely erroneous once you read this collection of poems (and stare blankly for minutes on eternity at some of the photographs accompanying the poems):
“The above three statements are false.”
I’ve been looking for a young voice to express things differently. I’ve enjoyed the poetry of Ocean Vuong and Danez Smith - especially their more serious poems - and I’ve read “Deaf Republic” by Kaminsky out loud so as to grasp the theatric, almost Stalinesque effect, in it... and yes, I’ve opened two books by both Kaur and Atticus and closed them again, thinking, “nice greeting card drawings/nice Instagram filter photos,” (nothing against them personally, as I do appreciate the new sub-genre they’ve created for those who don’t really ‘get’ poetry, but I just like long poems, I guess).
In either case, this collection clearly comes from a difficult place, and from a sacred place, and from an intimate and troubled place, and from a warm and cold and spiritually complicated place, as only death and life and memory and time can create... and both the poetry and photographs are charmed with a sense of momentary welcome that seems to whisper: Please, please, come in. But know that you cannot stay. This is my heart, after all.
“Poetry is dead. No one writes good poetry anymore.”
“It’s all Spoken Word these days.”
“The only poetry out there today is stuff like Rupi Kaur and Atticus, and it’s garbage.”
Three things you’ll realize are completely erroneous once you read this collection of poems (and stare blankly for minutes on eternity at some of the photographs accompanying the poems):
“The above three statements are false.”
I’ve been looking for a young voice to express things differently. I’ve enjoyed the poetry of Ocean Vuong and Danez Smith - especially their more serious poems - and I’ve read “Deaf Republic” by Kaminsky out loud so as to grasp the theatric, almost Stalinesque effect, in it... and yes, I’ve opened two books by both Kaur and Atticus and closed them again, thinking, “nice greeting card drawings/nice Instagram filter photos,” (nothing against them personally, as I do appreciate the new sub-genre they’ve created for those who don’t really ‘get’ poetry, but I just like long poems, I guess).
In either case, this collection clearly comes from a difficult place, and from a sacred place, and from an intimate and troubled place, and from a warm and cold and spiritually complicated place, as only death and life and memory and time can create... and both the poetry and photographs are charmed with a sense of momentary welcome that seems to whisper: Please, please, come in. But know that you cannot stay. This is my heart, after all.
December 19, 2021
I started out thinking the writing was beautiful but just a bit beyond my understanding and then I started bawling as my own unresolved grief came up. This collection broke me wide open and only got better as it progressed. For anyone whose lost someone, this is the collection for you.
Read
October 2, 2024I can't give or take stars from her grief.
"Love is whatever you think you can carry from your childhood
without breaking your heart."
Fuck
"Love is whatever you think you can carry from your childhood
without breaking your heart."
Fuck
February 14, 2025
A story about the author’s feelings, thoughts, and personal experiences surrounding her mother’s death, told through poetry.
I did not connect with every poem, especially those in the latter 1/3 of the book, but generally: even when I didn’t understand what she was trying to covey, or when I couldn’t imagine something in my mind from the words, the words still felt beautiful being read in my mind.
“Spinning my hairline body within emptiness, I project our unwoven path.”
“I am the daughter of the sun, am moonlit bride of a lyric that forces me to sing, to bite the snake again, after it has freed me.”
“It is nearly musical-
the message-
under waves of light falling away to clear the stars.”
“This is my new mother who has finally admitted fear into the raw ward of her heart.”
“We break mirrors inside of each other to see again.”
“I keep trying to hear
how the roses shivered as they fell inside the soft throat
of our farewell.”
“When you find your people they’ll throw their star to you, offer you their love song & say you need to listen to this dance & shine with us whether or not you know all the steps.
I did not connect with every poem, especially those in the latter 1/3 of the book, but generally: even when I didn’t understand what she was trying to covey, or when I couldn’t imagine something in my mind from the words, the words still felt beautiful being read in my mind.
“Spinning my hairline body within emptiness, I project our unwoven path.”
“I am the daughter of the sun, am moonlit bride of a lyric that forces me to sing, to bite the snake again, after it has freed me.”
“It is nearly musical-
the message-
under waves of light falling away to clear the stars.”
“This is my new mother who has finally admitted fear into the raw ward of her heart.”
“We break mirrors inside of each other to see again.”
“I keep trying to hear
how the roses shivered as they fell inside the soft throat
of our farewell.”
“When you find your people they’ll throw their star to you, offer you their love song & say you need to listen to this dance & shine with us whether or not you know all the steps.
November 1, 2024
Rachel Eliza Griffiths does in Seeing the Body what many poets who write about grief fail to do, and that is be unafraid of the "greatest sin" in poetry, which is melodrama or sentimentality. Hers is a voice that not only grieves but wails, a heart that is worn not on a sleeve, but on a bare shoulder.
The bodies of healing and grief overlap in this book which tries so hard to--and, I believe, succeeds in--visualize the map of loss in the form of a body: a living organism which dies and may be reborn. Her poems are set against the highly emotionally intense backdrops of both public and private mourning: Black womanhood, racial injustice, and her own complicated relationship to her mother.
The book is worth reading for the poem "Good Mother" alone, though I would add "Good America, Good Acts," "Good Food," "Work," "Good Night," and "Good Death" to that list as well. Her exploration of goodness even in unspeakable losing has produced work with imagery that is as beautiful as it is surprising.
Trigger warnings: mentions of rape and suicide, some language.
The bodies of healing and grief overlap in this book which tries so hard to--and, I believe, succeeds in--visualize the map of loss in the form of a body: a living organism which dies and may be reborn. Her poems are set against the highly emotionally intense backdrops of both public and private mourning: Black womanhood, racial injustice, and her own complicated relationship to her mother.
The book is worth reading for the poem "Good Mother" alone, though I would add "Good America, Good Acts," "Good Food," "Work," "Good Night," and "Good Death" to that list as well. Her exploration of goodness even in unspeakable losing has produced work with imagery that is as beautiful as it is surprising.
Trigger warnings: mentions of rape and suicide, some language.
July 16, 2020
Powerful hybrid collection. The photos and poems act as a guide for the reader, doing what the speaker's mother did for the speaker, 'showing how to follow (the) heart into hard places.' These are places that can't be cordoned off from the rest of one's life and often touch into much larger issues of violence based on race, on gender, based on a place disposed to violence - but also places that can't be cordoned off from community and the people showing these moments of light. This is not an easy collection to read but worth the journey. Seeing the Body shows writers learning to tap into the deeply personal, difficult places, that sometimes if you dig deep and honestly enough -- lives begin to touch other lives.
Rachel Eliza Griffiths poems and pictures are a treasure.
Rachel Eliza Griffiths poems and pictures are a treasure.
December 31, 2021
I have not historically read a lot of poetry, but at this phase of life am becoming quite interested in it, and am actively seeking out poets to follow. I fell in love with this book the same way one might fall in love with a person. For the first eight pages or so, I was intrigued, but unsure if I would be able to fully understand or grow accustomed to Griffiths' style. The more I read, the more I found to appreciate and value. Before I knew it, I found myself riding a swell of momentum--consuming the pages a little too fast. Among my favorite poems: Color Praxis I and II, Husband, and Good Mother, which made me cry. I look forward to re-reading this collection at some point, and will definitely follow Griffiths' work in the future.
April 7, 2022
"An anchor of blood"
"Woman as body, geography, and imagination."
"My mother pushed me into an asylum of books"
"She fed us ger ghost stories while fading inside her body"
"A grief makes its own blood"
"Love is whatever you think you can carry from your childhood without breaking your heart"
"That clot you call a soul"
"do not leave me alone in your house."
The cemetery described as the "lawn of the dead"
"Your world is a sigh from the bed"
"I was the prey & the hawk"
"It's your turn, it's always your turn, the night says."
"...I missed the mind I had when I had my mother"
"Forgive the moment..."
"furious that spring could still be so wonderful."
Top poems:
Paradise
Mirror
"Woman as body, geography, and imagination."
"My mother pushed me into an asylum of books"
"She fed us ger ghost stories while fading inside her body"
"A grief makes its own blood"
"Love is whatever you think you can carry from your childhood without breaking your heart"
"That clot you call a soul"
"do not leave me alone in your house."
The cemetery described as the "lawn of the dead"
"Your world is a sigh from the bed"
"I was the prey & the hawk"
"It's your turn, it's always your turn, the night says."
"...I missed the mind I had when I had my mother"
"Forgive the moment..."
"furious that spring could still be so wonderful."
Top poems:
Paradise
Mirror
Read
August 30, 2023I want you so ordinary.
I want you so sticky. Not like honey or strawberry bubble gum
or the thin cloud of joy that dries on my stomach and lips.
I said sticky. I want the sigh you make when sleep
is near, so close to your eyelids you smile & make a breezy sound
that is only yours as you step into a dream
where you fly & ride dragons. I am the dragon,
not the Last Dragon, but the one
to whom you'll surrender your divinity.
Lay your cheek against my scaly wings.
I want you plain. I want you bragging. I want you
naked as a tongue without a word. I want you
laughing. I want you joy. I want you wonder & wonderful.
The hips on every guitar. Copper tambourines
scoring your laughter.
from Paradise
I want you so sticky. Not like honey or strawberry bubble gum
or the thin cloud of joy that dries on my stomach and lips.
I said sticky. I want the sigh you make when sleep
is near, so close to your eyelids you smile & make a breezy sound
that is only yours as you step into a dream
where you fly & ride dragons. I am the dragon,
not the Last Dragon, but the one
to whom you'll surrender your divinity.
Lay your cheek against my scaly wings.
I want you plain. I want you bragging. I want you
naked as a tongue without a word. I want you
laughing. I want you joy. I want you wonder & wonderful.
The hips on every guitar. Copper tambourines
scoring your laughter.
from Paradise
Read
December 23, 2022These self-portraits of a woman facing her own mother’s death drop us into a world of grief and recognition. A poet and photographer, Rachel Eliza Griffiths includes both her art forms in Seeing the Body, so there are pages of photographs in addition to all the book’s honest and revelatory poems. Refracting and refining her gaze page after page, Griffiths seems to be working toward seeing her own body, as well her dying-then-dead mother’s, within the changed landscape of grief.
Review published originally with Orion Magazine: https://orionmagazine.org/2021/12/fif...
Review published originally with Orion Magazine: https://orionmagazine.org/2021/12/fif...
March 5, 2022
Reading ... Rachel Eliza Griffiths! SEEING THE BODY
(W. W. Norton & Company, 2020)
This book. "daughter : lyric : landscape"
This book. "What [this poet] must write in blood"
This book. "Awake inside of [the poet's] blood"
This book. "Honey, blood blood / blood."
This book. A "grief lush and sweet"
This book. "the frank blood / [this poet] spill[s] on the page"
This book. "verb tenses still / change all the time"
From a poet. "whose spirit is both emaciated and exhilarated in the face of monumental loss"
"Awake inside of [this reader's] blood"
(W. W. Norton & Company, 2020)
This book. "daughter : lyric : landscape"
This book. "What [this poet] must write in blood"
This book. "Awake inside of [the poet's] blood"
This book. "Honey, blood blood / blood."
This book. A "grief lush and sweet"
This book. "the frank blood / [this poet] spill[s] on the page"
This book. "verb tenses still / change all the time"
From a poet. "whose spirit is both emaciated and exhilarated in the face of monumental loss"
"Awake inside of [this reader's] blood"
May 25, 2022
How would my mother find us again with so much starlight? How would I know who the wind was & was it any different than when my mother was breathing her name across the sky?
A heart-wrenching poetry collection dealing mainly with the death of the author’s mother. It is fierce, delicate, imposing, and quiet all at once.
December 31, 2020
Words are not adequate to declare what a jewel of a book this is. It addresses loss in a myriad of pronouncements. Yet, amid the pain and suffering there lies an unquenchable love for the author's mother, her own black body, and that of other black bodies.
January 12, 2021
Haunting and rhythmic, Griffiths’ poetry and accompanying self-portraits radiate a rawness that captivated and astounded me; a mournful, resilient portrait of Black womanhood; grief and healing captured in alphabet.
August 24, 2021
An easy 5 stars. One of the best books of poetry I've read in awhile. In particular, 'My Rapes' was a poignant piece that I read multiple times. Actually, I read almost all of the poems in this collection multiple times and found something new with every re-read.
February 1, 2023
Terribly sad and beautiful. Some of the formats didn’t speak to me but otherwise just a great collection.
Favorite poems: Heart of Darkness; Elegy, Surrounded by Seven Trees, Signs, Color Theory & Praxis (I); Good Mother
Favorite poems: Heart of Darkness; Elegy, Surrounded by Seven Trees, Signs, Color Theory & Praxis (I); Good Mother
August 6, 2020
Potent.
April 1, 2021
"I'll kiss sorrow with my tongue & promise her /I've never cheated. / I glittered & glittered while she wasn't looking / I couldn't help it."
(from Another Age)
(from Another Age)
April 12, 2021
5 stars for Good Mother alone. Really moving collection.
June 14, 2021
Wow! The poems are gorgeous and heartbreaking and hopeful. I really like how the author's photos are interspersed--the images haunt and inhabit the poems.
July 14, 2021
Another sharp, layered collection working through grief.
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