Pink: Poems

by Sylvie Baumgartel

A sharp, visceral new collection of poetry that touches on art, history, sex, bodies, language, and the color pink



The sack of Rome,
The siege of Florence.
The lights twinkle pink in Fiesole.
Pink furls, pink buds.
Wet pink veiny hearts in spring.
Pink can mean so many things.

Sylvie Baumgartel's Pink moves from the shadow of the Ponte Vecchio to a mission church in Santa Fe, from Daily Mail reports to a photograph of a girl from Tierra del Fuego, from a grandmother's advice ("Don't go to Smith and don't get fat") to legs wrapped around "a man who calls me cake."

Baumgartel, a poet of fierce, intimate, wry language, delivers a second collection about art, history, violence, bodies, fear, pain, reckoning, and transcendence. The poems travel back to the historical, linguistic, and emotional sources of things while surging forward with a stirring momentum, creating a whirlwind of birth and destruction.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Hardcover

First published February 2, 2021

Reviews

[Sara (onourshelves) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not going to lie, I didn't understand as much of this as I would have liked, but I felt every second of it, and to me, that is the sign of a good poetry collection. It was very evocative, and almost had the feeling that Baumgartel was spitting fire, though it didn't necessarily come across as angry, just powerful.

The collection was consistent throughout--imagery was consistent from poem to poem, and certain motifs, including art, color, and sex were used throughout. Pink, the final poem in the collection, was an incredible conglomeration of all the poems that had come previously in the work. Overall, I cannot say enough good things about this collection, and would definitely recommend it.

Final thought: all of the poems were good, but I thought Stiletto, Girl, Love, and Pink (the second one) were especially powerful and intense.

Thank you to Netgalley, Sylvie Baumgartel, and the publisher Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

[madison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went into this book having no idea what to expect except that some of the poems were supposed to talk about art. I've never read poems by Sylvie Baumgartel before. Agh, they were wonderful. The collection really fit well together and poems spoke to one another over time. I loved how everything seemed to relate to visual art and imagery, images spun into words, maybe vice versa. Lots of Italian art references, often Florentine. I have no idea how to talk about poetry, but I loved the flow, the whole collection formed a cohesive mood and feel. Destructive, dark, attentive, smart, humorous at times. I loved it all.

Thanks to #NetGalley and Farrar, Straus, & Giroux for sharing a copy of this book in an exchange for an honest review.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Purple

The hand of the Roman
Purple dyer reeked of rotten fish.
Twelve thousand snails
Decimated for the trim
Of a royal robe.

It was the most desirable
Color on earth. Only
The most powerful
& wealthy could wear it.

The most prized of purples was
Like blackish clotted blood.

Blood brought to the
Surface of skin is purple.
By pleasure & by pain.
By love bites & by bruises.
I wear purple marks from
You on my eyes and hips. (38)

[Crystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

TWs: abuse, domestic violence

Favorites:

The little girl inside me is God.
The little girl inside me is a black-cloaked assassin.
God slashes to shit all of my ancestors.
I smell like flowers because
He loves me.

— from “Love”

The bodies of saints
Are broken apart
& stolen for worship.
You break apart
& I repair you.
You steal my body
& worship it.

— “Pink”

[Mandy Hazen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written and laid out. Self hope, self love, anxiety and depression mixed with self doubt. I felt like this book was speaking to me and for me. It was so beautifully written and resonated to my core. Highly recommend. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Juliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I set the table for tea. / I like discipline. / I like Goya’s nightmares. / I have chairs on my head / & chairs coming out of my mouth.” In Sylvie Baumgartel’s second poetry collection, Pink, art, bodies, sex, and the subconscious take centre stage, intersecting and diverging in dark, stark, lyrical works of vivid intensity. The opening trio of poems largely concern themselves with a certain ceiling, its bodies and sacredness and mythic status: “God is a brain on the ceiling / Of the Sistine Chapel.” From there the collection runs through a wide array of notions in art and desire, of what the individual stands to gain and lose, physically, from art, and what it wants of us: “I wonder if what paintings / Really want is to reproduce.” Baumgartel’s skill is as much in the specific imagery of each poem as in the slow layering of themes and refrains across the forty pieces comprising this collection, building to a final poem much longer than the rest, one of two poems titled ‘Pink’, which has such a stunning couplet: “You broke apart & I restored you. / You broke my heart & I adored you.” And from a more personal perspective, I found that her poems — especially ‘Love’, its assertion that “He does it to me because I do it to myself” — so perfectly capture a toxic masochism, hard propensities for self-loathing. “Sometimes I want the man I love to / Literally devour me. // The little girl inside me is God. / The little girl inside me is a black-cloaked assassin.”

[Jeimy · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Women protesting femicide
Paint colored hands clamped
Over their mouths.

Death in Juárez is pink.
The crosses of the murdered
& missing are painted pink.
A slaughterhouse of girls.

I read this collection in my classroom as my students completed their classwork. It is raw, it is violent, it is not easy to read. I must have been reacting to it in some way because a student asked me if I was okay. I had heartburn... just from reading.

Poetry is supposed to evoke an emotional response: mission accomplished, Baumgartel.

[Cash · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me this Arc in exchange for a honest review

4.5


This was a wild ride! It was a collection of beautifully written poetry. Anxiety, self love, family, depression, relationships, it was a beautiful mixture of them all put together. I absolutely loved 'LOVE', not only was it wrote so perfectly, it was so powerful. The whole book is powerful, definitely reccomend it for those who like to feel connected with each word, each line.

[Stacie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received a complimentary copy of this title from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed are my own.

Modern poetry is very different from what I'm accustomed to. I found this one to be crass, leaning on vulgar. I somehow simultaneously appreciated the ongoing reference/metaphor to the Sistine Chapel. It felt extremely contrived, like the cigarette bit in "The Fault In Our Stars."

Overall, not impressed.

[Terri · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to read something that makes you feel something, Pink by Sylvie Baumgartel is the collection to pick up. I took a long time reading this one because after each poem, you feel the need to contemplate its meaning, or, if the meaning is on the surface, you want to contemplate how that specific piece made you feel. It's not like an ordinary collection--there is no filler content and every piece will be sure to give you some type of reaction.

*Book provided by NetGalley

[Samhita Argula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Has some wonderful verses. A guaranteed thought-provoking read.

[Manon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the first time I've read poetry by Sylvie Baumgartel. Her style is raw, intimate and honest. Her poems often reference (Italian) art, which I really liked.

Pink is a novel about self love, hope, art and history. The poems are beautifully intertwined and forms a cohesive collection.

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is the poetry collection people wish they could write!! a really interesting exploration of womanhood (without being trite or overly general/stereotypical)

[Marg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my vibe.

[Lis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never read Sylvie Baumgartel's poems before, and oh my! What a work of art, beautifully written, I felt a bit of ironic voice in some poems, and I loved it, I loved that sensuality and depth.
The combination of topics, I felt like I was in Italy, or the feeling of a mother, or the meaning of PINK in some beautiful poems, what can I say, I loved her fluency in her writing, how each poem was connected to the next and the life in all of them.
I truly, recommend this book for those who love that deep feeling in each sentence, that makes you think and feel intensely the will to live.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this advanced copy.

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of mythological references and imagery. Felt like very intelligent poems, which is perhaps why I did not enjoy it more, having a hard time digesting them. Very dense and something that has a lot of depth.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.