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I Am Not Trying to Hide My Hungers from the World
Punk-rock feminist poems exploring motherhood, pop culture, and resistance with a spirit of defiance, abundance, and irreverent joy Kendra DeColo reaffirms the action of mothering as heroic, brutal, and hardcore. These poems interrogate patriarchal narratives about childbirth, postpartum healing, and motherhood through the lens of pop culture and the political zeitgeist. With references ranging from Courtney Love to Lana Del Rey to Richard Burton to Nicolas Cage, I Am Not Trying to Hide My Hungers from the World revitalizes the way we look at pushing its boundaries and reclaiming one's spirit of defiance, abundance, and irreverent joy.
- GenresPoetryLiterary Fiction
104 pages, Paperback
First published April 20, 2021
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May 22, 2021Here's the good news: Poetry can be about anything -- ANYTHING -- under the sun, not just nature, love, and my personal favorite, death. This collection by DeColo (whose name was news to me upon receiving the book via a poetry book subscription) proves it in spades.
For example? She jumps right in with the first poem "I Pump Milk Like a Boss," which is all about lactating over a bar's bathroom sink (where else?). Then we get poems about menstrual blood (a classic Robert Frost topic) and oral sex and actual sex. We get titles like "I Would Like to Tell the President to Eat a Dick in a Non-Homophobic Way" (written during the Voldemort Administration, I assure you). And before long (say, page 5), we realize we're not in Kansas anymore and yes, you can write a poem about ANYthing.
Now the maybe bad news: Do you want to? I can imagine some readers being turned off by this stuff. Not that they're wrong or puritanical or whatever, it's just not their thing, just as it IS DeColo's thing, and apparently one of the hallmarks of her poetry.
I admired some of the imagery (if graphic at times), word play, and imaginative leaps in the collection. I thought it often worked and sometimes didn't. And I realized how quickly the sensational can become the hum of the next poem's drum, once you read enough of it.
Here's a sample poem from the collection, if you're wondering (and you should be). Bonus: I'll give you the answer to the title before you even begin reading: "I don't, either."
I Don’t Think Neruda Was Thinking of My Tampon
when he wrote
“Body of a Woman”
how it bloats and swells
with urine every time I pee
or the diva cup I consider buying
in the health food store while
Paganini’s First Concerto for Violin
pierces through my ear buds
with arpeggios I first heard
on the car radio when I was 17
and the music inked into me
its gauzy ambition
I choose Size Two
“for women over thirty who’ve given birth”
which is a polite way
of saying LOOSE
but tonight I’m feeling romantic
thoughtfully tearing
into a package
of cherry pie
in my parked Subaru
and imagine what it might
feel like to be rendered
under the glow
of the Citgo sign
which is so much like the moon
I can’t tell the difference
There was the lover
who said my body was
as good as Drew Barrymore’s
another who said I was better
looking naked than he predicted
and another who said
I looked like a child
and prostitute combined
and the one who hissed
I was so beautiful
it made him want to hurt me
Is this what you meant, Neruda
when you wrote you stretch out
like the world
the jetty of curls
that thickens with blood
on the last day of my period
Did you mean
the shimmer and molt
the near-death stink
of a movie theater’s
overflowing dark as the credits
unfurl and entrails
of crushed candy
scribble over the plush carpet
or a banquet hall flashing
with half-filled BINGO cards
or the IHOP sign off Storrow Drive
like a church marquee
announcing I’m almost home
Did you mean rows
of Slim Jims
gleaming in their packages
of synthetic skin
a beard of neon dust
sprawling across my chin
hunched in the dark
of a gas station bathroom
where the attendant
keeps vanilla scented air freshener
plugged into the wall
could you have imagined me
pulling a cup of blood
from my body and if so
was there a word you felt
and was it envy
For example? She jumps right in with the first poem "I Pump Milk Like a Boss," which is all about lactating over a bar's bathroom sink (where else?). Then we get poems about menstrual blood (a classic Robert Frost topic) and oral sex and actual sex. We get titles like "I Would Like to Tell the President to Eat a Dick in a Non-Homophobic Way" (written during the Voldemort Administration, I assure you). And before long (say, page 5), we realize we're not in Kansas anymore and yes, you can write a poem about ANYthing.
Now the maybe bad news: Do you want to? I can imagine some readers being turned off by this stuff. Not that they're wrong or puritanical or whatever, it's just not their thing, just as it IS DeColo's thing, and apparently one of the hallmarks of her poetry.
I admired some of the imagery (if graphic at times), word play, and imaginative leaps in the collection. I thought it often worked and sometimes didn't. And I realized how quickly the sensational can become the hum of the next poem's drum, once you read enough of it.
Here's a sample poem from the collection, if you're wondering (and you should be). Bonus: I'll give you the answer to the title before you even begin reading: "I don't, either."
I Don’t Think Neruda Was Thinking of My Tampon
when he wrote
“Body of a Woman”
how it bloats and swells
with urine every time I pee
or the diva cup I consider buying
in the health food store while
Paganini’s First Concerto for Violin
pierces through my ear buds
with arpeggios I first heard
on the car radio when I was 17
and the music inked into me
its gauzy ambition
I choose Size Two
“for women over thirty who’ve given birth”
which is a polite way
of saying LOOSE
but tonight I’m feeling romantic
thoughtfully tearing
into a package
of cherry pie
in my parked Subaru
and imagine what it might
feel like to be rendered
under the glow
of the Citgo sign
which is so much like the moon
I can’t tell the difference
There was the lover
who said my body was
as good as Drew Barrymore’s
another who said I was better
looking naked than he predicted
and another who said
I looked like a child
and prostitute combined
and the one who hissed
I was so beautiful
it made him want to hurt me
Is this what you meant, Neruda
when you wrote you stretch out
like the world
the jetty of curls
that thickens with blood
on the last day of my period
Did you mean
the shimmer and molt
the near-death stink
of a movie theater’s
overflowing dark as the credits
unfurl and entrails
of crushed candy
scribble over the plush carpet
or a banquet hall flashing
with half-filled BINGO cards
or the IHOP sign off Storrow Drive
like a church marquee
announcing I’m almost home
Did you mean rows
of Slim Jims
gleaming in their packages
of synthetic skin
a beard of neon dust
sprawling across my chin
hunched in the dark
of a gas station bathroom
where the attendant
keeps vanilla scented air freshener
plugged into the wall
could you have imagined me
pulling a cup of blood
from my body and if so
was there a word you felt
and was it envy
May 2, 2021
Kendra DeColo is one of the most exciting, skilled, and original poets out there today; this book is an incredible snapshot of motherhood, desire, and clear-eyed anger that is affirming to experience. Read it.
May 5, 2021
My goodness, what a book.
May 15, 2021
I mean my mother’s body was a house burning / and I’ve been burning ever since
(from “I Want to Burn the Frat House of America to the Ground”)
(from “I Want to Burn the Frat House of America to the Ground”)
August 13, 2024
The prose and voice of this is so readable and the content is so in your face bold I literally tore through this so fast. Genuinely a riot of a read that had me chuckling and raging and feeling all the feels.
June 28, 2023
This serves big feminist vibes & major God is a Woman energy 🔥
November 29, 2021
Wow, this collection took me by surprise! I absolutely loved this collection by Kendra DeColo. I wasn't sure what to expect going in, but these poems are gritty and visceral and badass. Moving and real reflections on childbirth, nursing, motherhood, womanhood, and so much more. Will definitely look to read more of this poet's work!
August 10, 2021
Completely and totally my thing. Beautifully lyric and fully embodied. Lots of vadge and ass and boobs filled with milk.
September 28, 2021
I found a lot of these poems really moving; couldn't put it down.
September 27, 2022
A book of the body -- weighted in the world, yet dazzles toward the edges of possibility.
January 5, 2022
This collection flips the idea of “mom poet” upside-down with a visceral and beautiful account of modern motherhood. I enjoyed every poem, at times it seemed like DeColo read my mind. The pop culture-laced lines were fuel on the fire, placing this firmly in the present. I felt the visceral experiences of birth, breastfeeding, menstruation and sex were (somehow) beautifully done. Is there anything more raw than the love involved in those experiences? My favorite poetry collection in a while. Five stars.
June 14, 2022
I love poetry. I love poetry about pretty much anything, but poetry about being a mom??? yes. this book managed to make me laugh & feel & I utterly adore it. DeColo's stage of life / perspective is radically different from mine, yet the connection via her writing was instant. Read this.
December 19, 2023
Wish the book was as good at the title
(but for real it only really talked about surface level feminist talking points and also the parasocialisation of politicians is not it, I don't care if hillary clinton is happy today she and her husband are war criminals)
(but for real it only really talked about surface level feminist talking points and also the parasocialisation of politicians is not it, I don't care if hillary clinton is happy today she and her husband are war criminals)
June 9, 2021
Beautiful, hilarious, irreverent, feminist poems that I fell in love with!
July 9, 2021
Wow, Kendra DeColo never disappoints!
October 7, 2021
Short and easy. Not my favorite book.
September 9, 2022
I loved this book. Here's my interview with Kendra DeColo to prove it: https://www.usi.edu/sir/meter-reader/...
January 19, 2025
Utterly adored this! Such a powerful voice
November 22, 2025
My official top poetry book of 2025. this was immaculate!
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews