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What Kind of Woman: Poems
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Poetry (2020)A PopSugar and Entertainment Weekly Most Anticipated November Read
"If you want your breath to catch and your heart to stop, turn to Kate Baer."--Joanna Goddard, Cup of Jo
A stunning and honest debut poetry collection about the beauty and hardships of being a woman in the world today, and the many roles we play - mother, partner, and friend.
“When life throws you a bag of sorrow, hold out your hands/Little by little, mountains are climbed.” So ends Kate Baer’s remarkable poem “Things My Girlfriends Teach Me.” In “Nothing Tastes as Good as Skinny Feels” she challenges her reader to consider their grandmother’s cake, the taste of the sea, the cool swill of freedom. In her poem “Deliverance” about her son’s birth she writes “What is the word for when the light leaves the body★/What is the word for when it/at last, returns★”
Through poems that are as unforgettably beautiful as they are accessible, Kate Bear proves herself to truly be an exemplary voice in modern poetry. Her words make women feel seen in their own bodies, in their own marriages, and in their own lives. Her poems are those you share with your mother, your daughter, your sister, and your friends.
"If you want your breath to catch and your heart to stop, turn to Kate Baer."--Joanna Goddard, Cup of Jo
A stunning and honest debut poetry collection about the beauty and hardships of being a woman in the world today, and the many roles we play - mother, partner, and friend.
“When life throws you a bag of sorrow, hold out your hands/Little by little, mountains are climbed.” So ends Kate Baer’s remarkable poem “Things My Girlfriends Teach Me.” In “Nothing Tastes as Good as Skinny Feels” she challenges her reader to consider their grandmother’s cake, the taste of the sea, the cool swill of freedom. In her poem “Deliverance” about her son’s birth she writes “What is the word for when the light leaves the body★/What is the word for when it/at last, returns★”
Through poems that are as unforgettably beautiful as they are accessible, Kate Bear proves herself to truly be an exemplary voice in modern poetry. Her words make women feel seen in their own bodies, in their own marriages, and in their own lives. Her poems are those you share with your mother, your daughter, your sister, and your friends.
112 pages, Hardcover
First published November 10, 2020
816 people are currently reading
32910 people want to read
About the author
Kate Baer
5 books1,595 followersKate Baer is the 3x New York Times bestselling author of What Kind Of Woman, I Hope This Finds You Well, & And Yet. Her work has also been published in The New Yorker, Literary Hub, Huffington Post and The New York Times.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,425 reviews
April 16, 2020
It's almost like the author knew EXACTLY what I was thinking (?)
November 20, 2020
You think women sit around together and burn bras?
The women in this book are good girls, bad girls, single, wives, mothers, dancers, counselors, wicked, sad, lonely, secretive, grieving, happy, fearful of happiness, angry, sad, regretful, tired, tireless, have desires, they arrange plates of bread and fruit, wear rubber gloves, plant gardens, go back to college, pay off debts, give away books, find each other‘s childhood, they share blistered scars, get half drunk, ready to love, and vary in age.
“Girls night out”
“In restaurants we argue over who will pay even though the real question is who will confess their children are dull
or their marriage has holes at the knees.
We order french fries, salads, and Brie.
Hold wine to our lips. Pull truth from our bags that we kept all along.
She wonders— do you remember when
I cried in the cab. Wore that skirt with
the sleeves. Left him alone in the rain.
We do, we do”.
“Robyn Hood”
“Imagine if we took back our diets, our grand delusions, the time spent thinking about the curve as our form.
Imagine if we took back every time we called attention to one or the other:
her body, our body, the bad shape of things.
Imagine the minutes that would stretch into hours. Day after day stolen back like a thief.
Imagine the power of loose arms
and assurance. Years years welcome home
in a soft, cotton dress”.
“Comment Section”
for Karen
“I wish you would stick to poetry instead of constantly being political, just one reader preference have you ever thought what would happen if the police disappeared ed?
is what you say going to change anything? (No)
when you stay in your lane,
better connection happens
I know staying silent isn’t cool but just a thought”.
I don’t read poetry often..., but this book called to me to read.
The themes are contemporary - about ‘women’.
“At any given moment there is someone getting what they always wanted”.
“Look, you are so beautiful”.
The women in this book are good girls, bad girls, single, wives, mothers, dancers, counselors, wicked, sad, lonely, secretive, grieving, happy, fearful of happiness, angry, sad, regretful, tired, tireless, have desires, they arrange plates of bread and fruit, wear rubber gloves, plant gardens, go back to college, pay off debts, give away books, find each other‘s childhood, they share blistered scars, get half drunk, ready to love, and vary in age.
“Girls night out”
“In restaurants we argue over who will pay even though the real question is who will confess their children are dull
or their marriage has holes at the knees.
We order french fries, salads, and Brie.
Hold wine to our lips. Pull truth from our bags that we kept all along.
She wonders— do you remember when
I cried in the cab. Wore that skirt with
the sleeves. Left him alone in the rain.
We do, we do”.
“Robyn Hood”
“Imagine if we took back our diets, our grand delusions, the time spent thinking about the curve as our form.
Imagine if we took back every time we called attention to one or the other:
her body, our body, the bad shape of things.
Imagine the minutes that would stretch into hours. Day after day stolen back like a thief.
Imagine the power of loose arms
and assurance. Years years welcome home
in a soft, cotton dress”.
“Comment Section”
for Karen
“I wish you would stick to poetry instead of constantly being political, just one reader preference have you ever thought what would happen if the police disappeared ed?
is what you say going to change anything? (No)
when you stay in your lane,
better connection happens
I know staying silent isn’t cool but just a thought”.
I don’t read poetry often..., but this book called to me to read.
The themes are contemporary - about ‘women’.
“At any given moment there is someone getting what they always wanted”.
“Look, you are so beautiful”.
January 17, 2022
Raw and authentic words on being a woman, a wife and a mother.
November 11, 2020
Wow. I enjoyed this book of poems more and more as I went. I chose this book to review because I wanted to go outside of my comfort zone. I've been saying to myself these past couple of years that I want to read some poetry, but I never do. Part of my apprehension about picking up some poetry is that I don't really know how to read it. The last time I made an attempt was in AP English in high school (20 years ago!). The more I read, the more those apprehensions slipped away. I think this book of poems is geared towards someone near my age and stage in life. There are poems of singledom, then marriage and finally, motherhood.
The poems that stuck out to me the most were:
Back To School Shopping
Stronger Than You Know
What Mothers Say
For My Daughter on a Bad Day
Kate Baer did a great job of weaving her way through the nuance of what it takes to be a mother in today's crazy world. If you are looking at this genre and aren't sure what to pick, I think this would make a great choice for you to get your feet wet.
Thank you so much to Harper Perennial for the opportunity to read and provide an honest review!
Review Date: 11/11/2020
Publication Date: 11/10/2020
The poems that stuck out to me the most were:
Back To School Shopping
Stronger Than You Know
What Mothers Say
For My Daughter on a Bad Day
Kate Baer did a great job of weaving her way through the nuance of what it takes to be a mother in today's crazy world. If you are looking at this genre and aren't sure what to pick, I think this would make a great choice for you to get your feet wet.
Thank you so much to Harper Perennial for the opportunity to read and provide an honest review!
Review Date: 11/11/2020
Publication Date: 11/10/2020
January 21, 2021
2 Stars
Granted I'm not a big poet-head. Which is just now a term I made up to describe poetry readers but this missed the mark for me.
There are maybe 4 poems in this collection that are interesting, beautiful, worthy of dissecting, discussing and perhaps even of being put on my skin permanently with a flower or turtle dove encircling it but the rest of this collection was filler.
I'm sorry but lets be real there was a "poem" (I'm putting it in brackets cause calling it poetry is a stretch) where she just lists people in her life with the word masked in front of them; Masked Mother, Masked Lover. Come on, that is the poetic equivalent of putting a big dot in the middle of a canvas and calling it abstract art. I call bullshit poetry! BULLSHIT!
Honestly we are starting to get real loosey goosey with what we are qualify as poetry these days like I said I am not a poet-head but even I know Robert Frost and Sylvia Plath would be pretty surprised with who they are now sharing this genre with. Don't fight me on this comment section, I'm pretty locked into this opinion and I am not afraid to die on this hill. This book is not worth the hype.
Granted I'm not a big poet-head. Which is just now a term I made up to describe poetry readers but this missed the mark for me.
There are maybe 4 poems in this collection that are interesting, beautiful, worthy of dissecting, discussing and perhaps even of being put on my skin permanently with a flower or turtle dove encircling it but the rest of this collection was filler.
I'm sorry but lets be real there was a "poem" (I'm putting it in brackets cause calling it poetry is a stretch) where she just lists people in her life with the word masked in front of them; Masked Mother, Masked Lover. Come on, that is the poetic equivalent of putting a big dot in the middle of a canvas and calling it abstract art. I call bullshit poetry! BULLSHIT!
Honestly we are starting to get real loosey goosey with what we are qualify as poetry these days like I said I am not a poet-head but even I know Robert Frost and Sylvia Plath would be pretty surprised with who they are now sharing this genre with. Don't fight me on this comment section, I'm pretty locked into this opinion and I am not afraid to die on this hill. This book is not worth the hype.
December 5, 2021
I hate leaving negative reviews, and if you found something of value in this collection then I am glad. But I need to vent so here it is:
Trite, unoriginal, banal, I could keep listing synonyms but that would be boring and repetitive much like this poetry collection. The lack of originality could be forgiven if written in a stylistically interesting way. It wasn't. Also, if the author hates marriage so much, she doesn't have to be in one, or could find another partner. No one is forcing you. Women can open bank accounts on their own now. Why rail against societal constraints but do absolutely nothing in your own life to combat them? Obviously I don't know about the author's life, but the poetry did not seem to go anywhere though it was desperately trying. This poetry should have stayed on Instagram.
Also, the poem titled "Unsettling" on page 21, that just listed different people masked, (i.e. "Masked teller./Masked shopper." And so on.) was unforgivable to me. What did it add?
Trite, unoriginal, banal, I could keep listing synonyms but that would be boring and repetitive much like this poetry collection. The lack of originality could be forgiven if written in a stylistically interesting way. It wasn't. Also, if the author hates marriage so much, she doesn't have to be in one, or could find another partner. No one is forcing you. Women can open bank accounts on their own now. Why rail against societal constraints but do absolutely nothing in your own life to combat them? Obviously I don't know about the author's life, but the poetry did not seem to go anywhere though it was desperately trying. This poetry should have stayed on Instagram.
Also, the poem titled "Unsettling" on page 21, that just listed different people masked, (i.e. "Masked teller./Masked shopper." And so on.) was unforgivable to me. What did it add?
August 25, 2020
"You can be a mother and a poet. A wife and a lover. You can dance on the graves you dug on Tuesday, pulling out the bones of yourself you began to miss."
Once in a while, a book shows up on your doorstep & for millions of reasons that add up to you choosing to read it as soon as you rip off the wrapping-you sit down and begin reading. I sat down this afternoon and began reading What Kind of Woman and couldn't put it down. As a Woman, A Wife, A Mother- I felt so seen, so understood and received that overwhelming but refreshing confirmation that I'm not at this journey alone.
I am a lover of poetry. To my soul, it is one of my favorite things to read, but I get it.. a lot of what comes out nowadays can be so difficult to understand and can feel unreadable. Kate sticks to the basics. She magically takes ordinary words, throws them all together to create these beautiful sentences that in the end paint a beautiful real life scenario that you completely see or have seen yourself in before. We need more f*cking honesty about how tough Motherhood can be. How tough Womanhood can be. How tough married life can be. It isn't all fairy tales and happy endings: "When I took you as a husband I did not know the deaths our love would suffer. I did not know the grave of loneliness." Kate writes this in Curveball and ends the passage with, "even in our darkest hours, I still wait for the sound of your feet at the door." Curveball is followed by the poem For the Advice Cards at Bridal Showers which at its core is all about time revealing loves complications but shines the light on something I think we as women tend to do; holding out hope and staying positive, "For now just remember how you felt the day you were born: desperate for magic, ready to love."
Her poems on Motherhood, oh my goodness, "Experience will teach you two things: you are the mother, and it's okay to let them go up the slide." The everyday activities that also resort in a lot of anxiety, like park visits, "I am aware of dogs at the park. I am aware of men too." "Maybe he is just a man walking or maybe he is searching for a bird to break."
I think every woman should at some point read her poem, Robyn Hood which is all about us thinking about what we could do, could've done if we were able to steal all of the time back that we spent comparing ourselves to someone else and the power of assurance. I am going to reread Things My Girlfriends Teach Me everyday and meditate on this passage from To Take Back A Life, "Pick up your heavy burdens and leave them at the gate. I will hold the door for you."
This is an absolute amazing collection. I hope that it finds you at the right time.
Once in a while, a book shows up on your doorstep & for millions of reasons that add up to you choosing to read it as soon as you rip off the wrapping-you sit down and begin reading. I sat down this afternoon and began reading What Kind of Woman and couldn't put it down. As a Woman, A Wife, A Mother- I felt so seen, so understood and received that overwhelming but refreshing confirmation that I'm not at this journey alone.
I am a lover of poetry. To my soul, it is one of my favorite things to read, but I get it.. a lot of what comes out nowadays can be so difficult to understand and can feel unreadable. Kate sticks to the basics. She magically takes ordinary words, throws them all together to create these beautiful sentences that in the end paint a beautiful real life scenario that you completely see or have seen yourself in before. We need more f*cking honesty about how tough Motherhood can be. How tough Womanhood can be. How tough married life can be. It isn't all fairy tales and happy endings: "When I took you as a husband I did not know the deaths our love would suffer. I did not know the grave of loneliness." Kate writes this in Curveball and ends the passage with, "even in our darkest hours, I still wait for the sound of your feet at the door." Curveball is followed by the poem For the Advice Cards at Bridal Showers which at its core is all about time revealing loves complications but shines the light on something I think we as women tend to do; holding out hope and staying positive, "For now just remember how you felt the day you were born: desperate for magic, ready to love."
Her poems on Motherhood, oh my goodness, "Experience will teach you two things: you are the mother, and it's okay to let them go up the slide." The everyday activities that also resort in a lot of anxiety, like park visits, "I am aware of dogs at the park. I am aware of men too." "Maybe he is just a man walking or maybe he is searching for a bird to break."
I think every woman should at some point read her poem, Robyn Hood which is all about us thinking about what we could do, could've done if we were able to steal all of the time back that we spent comparing ourselves to someone else and the power of assurance. I am going to reread Things My Girlfriends Teach Me everyday and meditate on this passage from To Take Back A Life, "Pick up your heavy burdens and leave them at the gate. I will hold the door for you."
This is an absolute amazing collection. I hope that it finds you at the right time.
August 20, 2023
A beautiful (and simultaneously frustrated) collection of poems about womanhood and being a mother. I thoroughly enjoyed reading them but my position on having kids remains the same: it sounds exhausting. (See my review of Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on The Decision Not To Have Kids.)
January 23, 2021
I think women who have been divorced and/or have very young children will connect more with these poems.
November 29, 2020
Thank you Harper Perennial for the opportunity to read this collection!
It is not often when you come across a collection of poems that just speak to you. What Kind of Woman by Kate Baer is a collection of poems broken up into three parts. Part one is being a woman. Part two is being a wife. Part three is being a mother. While these poems really speak to women, they are for everyone. It can be an experience in the minds of women.
I would read a few poems every day and would end up thinking about them until I read more the next day. This is one of those collections that will stay with you.
In part one, one of the favorites is: Nothing Tastes As Good As Skinny Feels
“have you ever tasted the cool swill of
freedom? The consuming rush of a
quiet, radical love…”
NOTHING TASTES AS GOOD AS SKINNY FEELS
My favorite from the second part is: For The Advice Cards At Bridal Showers
“This is not a happy ending. This is not a fairy tale. This is the beginning
of a life you haven’t met.”
FOR THE ADVICE CARDS AT BRIDAL SHOWERS
And finally, in the third part: Transfiguration
“I dreamt myself into a mother,
but when I became her, I had to
dream her back into a woman”
TRANSFIGURATION
This collection gets all the stars. I couldn’t recommend it enough!
It is not often when you come across a collection of poems that just speak to you. What Kind of Woman by Kate Baer is a collection of poems broken up into three parts. Part one is being a woman. Part two is being a wife. Part three is being a mother. While these poems really speak to women, they are for everyone. It can be an experience in the minds of women.
I would read a few poems every day and would end up thinking about them until I read more the next day. This is one of those collections that will stay with you.
In part one, one of the favorites is: Nothing Tastes As Good As Skinny Feels
“have you ever tasted the cool swill of
freedom? The consuming rush of a
quiet, radical love…”
NOTHING TASTES AS GOOD AS SKINNY FEELS
My favorite from the second part is: For The Advice Cards At Bridal Showers
“This is not a happy ending. This is not a fairy tale. This is the beginning
of a life you haven’t met.”
FOR THE ADVICE CARDS AT BRIDAL SHOWERS
And finally, in the third part: Transfiguration
“I dreamt myself into a mother,
but when I became her, I had to
dream her back into a woman”
TRANSFIGURATION
This collection gets all the stars. I couldn’t recommend it enough!
December 4, 2020
I feel seen. She put words to things I didn’t think could ever be expressed. “To unclasp the thought of leaving, tie it to the door. To run into the gaping mouth of change and know it’s suffering. To find the ones who say, I am not afraid of sitting in the dark with you.”
Witchcraft.
Thank you, Kate.
Witchcraft.
Thank you, Kate.
January 22, 2021
*shrugs* This just wasn't my cuppa tea.
Listen. I can see why some people would like her poetry, I do. But this just wasn't my cup of tea. As always with poetry, it was a mixed bag for me. The only thing I really enjoyed was her poems about motherhood. Those were genuinely beautiful, and one of the reasons I gave this book more than one star. But her views on life and marriage were mega-depressing. I came to this volume of poetry looking for empowerment, and all I got was "Say Something" by A Great Big World. I also wish I had been trigger warned beforehand. All in all, it was okay, but it didn't meet me at this stage in my life, and I left the book just feeling sad.
Overall: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
Writing Quality: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
Enjoyment Level: ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Listen. I can see why some people would like her poetry, I do. But this just wasn't my cup of tea. As always with poetry, it was a mixed bag for me. The only thing I really enjoyed was her poems about motherhood. Those were genuinely beautiful, and one of the reasons I gave this book more than one star. But her views on life and marriage were mega-depressing. I came to this volume of poetry looking for empowerment, and all I got was "Say Something" by A Great Big World. I also wish I had been trigger warned beforehand. All in all, it was okay, but it didn't meet me at this stage in my life, and I left the book just feeling sad.
Overall: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
Writing Quality: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
Enjoyment Level: ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
January 30, 2022
The poetry about motherhood hit me really hard in the feels. I’m not sure I’ll ever not be thinking about this book.
September 10, 2022
I borrowed this from a good friend, and by ten pages in I knew I needed to buy my own copy, too. Baer’s poems are feminine, thought-provoking, and raw. I want to print these poems out and hang them on every wall of my house, and I want to mail them to every woman I know and love, too. An astounding collection from start to finish; I have rarely found a book of poetry to be so cohesive and consistently strong.
Edit: I reread this a year and a half later, while pregnant with a baby girl, and it is perhaps even more poignant than I remember. Still one of my all-time favorite collections.
Edit: I reread this a year and a half later, while pregnant with a baby girl, and it is perhaps even more poignant than I remember. Still one of my all-time favorite collections.
April 1, 2021
3.5 stars
If you pick this up as a Poetry Reader who studies a lot of Poetry, then you might be disappointed.
If you pick this up as a new mother who feels steamrolled by what-just-happened-to-me then you might feel understood.
If you pick this up expecting that you will connect with at least one poem, you might feel disappointed or perhaps elated. I think it's typically going to swing wide.
I liked many of these poems and related to much of and in them, though I don't think I'll be returning to them again and again. They aren't the sorts of poems I would memorize to carry within me for an anchor or a spring. But they ARE the kind of poems I could send to a girlfriend in the aftershock of childbirth or divorce or other confusion and trust that she will feel relief that she is not alone. That's one role poetry is here for and by that definition this collection succeeds.
In short, while this collection is for a specific subset of women, I'm glad these poems exist.
If you pick this up as a Poetry Reader who studies a lot of Poetry, then you might be disappointed.
If you pick this up as a new mother who feels steamrolled by what-just-happened-to-me then you might feel understood.
If you pick this up expecting that you will connect with at least one poem, you might feel disappointed or perhaps elated. I think it's typically going to swing wide.
I liked many of these poems and related to much of and in them, though I don't think I'll be returning to them again and again. They aren't the sorts of poems I would memorize to carry within me for an anchor or a spring. But they ARE the kind of poems I could send to a girlfriend in the aftershock of childbirth or divorce or other confusion and trust that she will feel relief that she is not alone. That's one role poetry is here for and by that definition this collection succeeds.
In short, while this collection is for a specific subset of women, I'm glad these poems exist.
August 12, 2020
This review is based on an advanced copy I got when I won the Goodreads giveaway. I first discovered Kate’s poetry when a friend tagged me in one of her posts on instagram. I was blown away at the simplicity of so few words capturing such complex and raw parts of womanhood and motherhood. In this book, while every poem evokes clear images and emotions, a few stood out to me as almost mantras for our time. Robyn Hood makes me weep: it wonders aloud about the time we have wasted worrying about how fat or thin we are, constantly thinking about our bodies, and what we could have done with that time if we hadn’t done that? It’s like a blinding light to read it - almost too much painful truth to absorb. This book also has some particularly poignant poems on marriage. Curveball stood out as a favorite. “That even in our darkest hours, I still wait for the sound of your feet at the door.” I mean - that single line nails it. Finally, Fresh Lemonade is a poem I will read 9000 times and get something new each time I read it. It’s about gender roles, expectations, hunger, anger.
I plan to give a copy of this book to every woman and mother I love at the holidays and hope that they keep it at their bedside like a rosary they can touch and get strength from. Something they can read again and again and feel...seen. Kate Baer is the best thing I have stumbled upon in a long time.
I plan to give a copy of this book to every woman and mother I love at the holidays and hope that they keep it at their bedside like a rosary they can touch and get strength from. Something they can read again and again and feel...seen. Kate Baer is the best thing I have stumbled upon in a long time.
April 1, 2021
Commencement Address
When I take my evening walk, I unlock rooms
I never meant to close, which is one way
to write a book. Another is to peel
an orange or take a shower or
fall in love with someone dangerous
At any given moment there is someone getting
what they always wanted.
I know no quicker way to ruin a day
than to dwell on this.
When I take my evening walk, I unlock rooms
I never meant to close, which is one way
to write a book. Another is to peel
an orange or take a shower or
fall in love with someone dangerous
At any given moment there is someone getting
what they always wanted.
I know no quicker way to ruin a day
than to dwell on this.
December 22, 2020
I liked this collection of poetry! The author is excessively talented. It just didn’t meet me where I’m at in this current stage of life.
August 7, 2023
Great book of poems about the phases of womanhood
August 14, 2022
My favorite poems
Ego:
I once had a boyfriend who would not let me
watch him eat. He did not want me to see him
grind and swallow, gulp and guzzle, suck the
marrow from his teeth.
He did not want me to see him need.
Female Candidate:
I like her but / aggressive tone / it’s not that she / now that I have daughters / if only she would / in that short haircut / nothing against the way she dresses / if she wasn’t a baby killer / I don’t know how he could marry / how she can stand up in those shoes / with a child in school / here comes the feminism / not enough / warmth is important / no class is the problem and / anti-woman is the word I would use / not American if she doesn’t / give glory to / show some leg / I cannot vote for the kind of woman who / has a stick up her / not my kind of girl
Like a Wife:
The week before my wedding, my friend’s dad said:
just don’t get fat, like other wives do.
And so I brined him in a deep salt bath, added thyme
and celery. Devoured him whole, in one big bite,
so he could see just how hungry a woman can be.
Transfiguration:
I dreamt myself into a mother,
but when I became her, I had to
dream her back into a woman
back into a woman
back into a woman
again.
Ego:
I once had a boyfriend who would not let me
watch him eat. He did not want me to see him
grind and swallow, gulp and guzzle, suck the
marrow from his teeth.
He did not want me to see him need.
Female Candidate:
I like her but / aggressive tone / it’s not that she / now that I have daughters / if only she would / in that short haircut / nothing against the way she dresses / if she wasn’t a baby killer / I don’t know how he could marry / how she can stand up in those shoes / with a child in school / here comes the feminism / not enough / warmth is important / no class is the problem and / anti-woman is the word I would use / not American if she doesn’t / give glory to / show some leg / I cannot vote for the kind of woman who / has a stick up her / not my kind of girl
Like a Wife:
The week before my wedding, my friend’s dad said:
just don’t get fat, like other wives do.
And so I brined him in a deep salt bath, added thyme
and celery. Devoured him whole, in one big bite,
so he could see just how hungry a woman can be.
Transfiguration:
I dreamt myself into a mother,
but when I became her, I had to
dream her back into a woman
back into a woman
back into a woman
again.
June 10, 2020
⭐4 Stars⭐
This book of poetry describes the soul of a woman, the want, the need and the desire for more that you can have.
It provokes a discussion of internalised misogyny, motherhood- its gains and losses and also the hardships that many face when shown the reality of their body. Weep with it, this is a collection that is as accessible as it is well-conceived.
Trigger Warnings: Eating Disorders, Body Shaming, Sexual Assault, Misogyny, Death, Pregnancy.
This book of poetry describes the soul of a woman, the want, the need and the desire for more that you can have.
It provokes a discussion of internalised misogyny, motherhood- its gains and losses and also the hardships that many face when shown the reality of their body. Weep with it, this is a collection that is as accessible as it is well-conceived.
Trigger Warnings: Eating Disorders, Body Shaming, Sexual Assault, Misogyny, Death, Pregnancy.
April 14, 2021
i felt everything
July 20, 2021
meu deus que desconforto que me deu essa leitura. são poemas sobre casamento e ter filhos e maternidade e são coisas bem corriqueiras, do dia a dia mesmo. e me deu uma puta sensação de claustrofobia. a claustrofobia de ser mãe e esposa. e eu nem sou casada nem tenho filhos!!!!! me deu uma sensação de ansiedade mesmo.
ps achei muito engraçado que tem uma parte toda sobre casamento e eu fiquei lendo pensando nossa imagina o marido dessa mulher lendo isso... dae no final do livro tem um disclaimer falando ''todos os personagens e situações retratados nessa obra são fictícios e bla bla bla'' KKKKKKKKKKKKKK fiquei uhummm, ATA
ps achei muito engraçado que tem uma parte toda sobre casamento e eu fiquei lendo pensando nossa imagina o marido dessa mulher lendo isso... dae no final do livro tem um disclaimer falando ''todos os personagens e situações retratados nessa obra são fictícios e bla bla bla'' KKKKKKKKKKKKKK fiquei uhummm, ATA
January 5, 2021
“For now just remember: birds sing, babies cry,
and no matter the weather, every morning is new.”
- For the Advice Cards at Baby Showers
“Pick up your heavy burdens and leave
them at the gate. I will hold the door for
you.”
- To Take Back a Life
I haven’t read poetry in a long time and am far from an expert, but this collection of poems is stunning. For me, the poems about motherhood especially were incredibly moving, heartbreaking and true. I inhaled it in a sitting, but will be flipping through it and referencing it for a long time to come. What a gift.
and no matter the weather, every morning is new.”
- For the Advice Cards at Baby Showers
“Pick up your heavy burdens and leave
them at the gate. I will hold the door for
you.”
- To Take Back a Life
I haven’t read poetry in a long time and am far from an expert, but this collection of poems is stunning. For me, the poems about motherhood especially were incredibly moving, heartbreaking and true. I inhaled it in a sitting, but will be flipping through it and referencing it for a long time to come. What a gift.
March 31, 2022
What a crackling, electric collection. The first two parts were alive and throttling. So many lines swirled around in my head as I read. The third part focused on motherhood, something I’m generally uninterested in as someone who is child-free and I was less engaged as a result. How I long for an exploration of women that isn't tethered to being a mother. But on the whole, I quite enjoyed this one.
CW: rape, drugging, death of loved one (drowned), child death, fatphobia and diet culture (countered), disordered eating (not author), pregnancy and childbirth
CW: rape, drugging, death of loved one (drowned), child death, fatphobia and diet culture (countered), disordered eating (not author), pregnancy and childbirth
July 17, 2022
it was alright. i don’t know if it’s just the poetry i’m reading but nothing seems to hitting me in the way that i would call profound lately. everything is just, okay, adequate, maybe has two or so stand outs. and the same can be said for this book. it’s just fine.
November 19, 2020
Old favorite (and very favorite): Deleted Sentences. New favorite: Motherload. Section III is it for me. She just gets it.
January 10, 2021
Wow, wow, wow. This just filled my cup in a way I didn’t know I needed. I will be reaching for this book like a warm blanket for the end of time.
February 4, 2021
Spectacular. The words I never knew I knew, beautifully strewn together.
June 7, 2024
As the title suggests, the poems in this collection encourage us to really think about what it is to be a woman. Yet, this collection does not aim to show us what women are made of. Rather, Baer wants us to see women through their cuts and their torn open places. Only by understanding what's missing, can we begin to fathom what remains.
The poet makes us see how often the woman is an object, the one identified by adjectives instead of nouns, except for those nouns of belonging: someone's daughter, wife, lover, mother.
Baer always reminds me of Melissa Broder. I feel like if we could cut away the edges of Broder's Superdoom poems, we would find Baer, vibrating in the marrow. I hear the call loud and clear: do not deny women their full, valid, complexity.
Baer skewers misogyny in a matter of fact way, without betraying emotion. Heaven help the woman whose words are disregarded because she is perceived as too emotional, histrionic, hyperbolic, just too much or not enough, never the right amount. She's either a screeching Harpy or a stone-cold Bitch, if she is not agreeing or agreeable.
And somehow I sailed right by a salient point about the title. The poet is patient. She won't point it out, though she does want us to see it. I just had to stand back far enough to gain the larger sense of it. We know intuitively that "What Kind of Woman" is the beginning of a criticism, as in "What Kind of Woman does that?!?"
I was thrilled to see one erasure (blackout) poem included, especially with the blacked out words visible, so we grasp the entire meaning and tone of it.
I'm not sure if there is anyone as good as Baer at erasure poetry, maybe Crystal Simone Smith, but that's it.
The poet's near-biting honesty about relationships is refreshing and oddly freeing, as if to press us into the realization that Norman Rockwell prints and Hallmark card fronts have always been unrealistic and possibly toxic. "Oh, if I don't expect a fairy tale, I will be a lot less disappointed" we think to ourselves. The poet confirms for us what we already know: marriage is a precarious balance of being both attracted to, and repelled by, the exact same force.
Overall, this is a very good poetry collection.
The poet makes us see how often the woman is an object, the one identified by adjectives instead of nouns, except for those nouns of belonging: someone's daughter, wife, lover, mother.
Baer always reminds me of Melissa Broder. I feel like if we could cut away the edges of Broder's Superdoom poems, we would find Baer, vibrating in the marrow. I hear the call loud and clear: do not deny women their full, valid, complexity.
Baer skewers misogyny in a matter of fact way, without betraying emotion. Heaven help the woman whose words are disregarded because she is perceived as too emotional, histrionic, hyperbolic, just too much or not enough, never the right amount. She's either a screeching Harpy or a stone-cold Bitch, if she is not agreeing or agreeable.
And somehow I sailed right by a salient point about the title. The poet is patient. She won't point it out, though she does want us to see it. I just had to stand back far enough to gain the larger sense of it. We know intuitively that "What Kind of Woman" is the beginning of a criticism, as in "What Kind of Woman does that?!?"
I was thrilled to see one erasure (blackout) poem included, especially with the blacked out words visible, so we grasp the entire meaning and tone of it.
I'm not sure if there is anyone as good as Baer at erasure poetry, maybe Crystal Simone Smith, but that's it.
The poet's near-biting honesty about relationships is refreshing and oddly freeing, as if to press us into the realization that Norman Rockwell prints and Hallmark card fronts have always been unrealistic and possibly toxic. "Oh, if I don't expect a fairy tale, I will be a lot less disappointed" we think to ourselves. The poet confirms for us what we already know: marriage is a precarious balance of being both attracted to, and repelled by, the exact same force.
Overall, this is a very good poetry collection.
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