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Dark When it Gets Dark
Yves Olade’s lyrical prowess is apparent in Dark When It Gets Dark—a brooding and atmospheric series of poems filled with longing, the slow heart of desire and big silences. A must read. —N.L.SHOMPOLE
Yves Olade on Dark When It Gets Dark— is about desire, about gentleness and grief. The poems think in colors, in shapes, in moods. The collection also speaks to something of honesty, of truth, to the absence of duplicity. What would it mean for something to just be what it was, and nothing else? What if a storm is just a storm, and nothing else? What if it's finally dark when it gets dark?
2020 KINGDOMS IN THE WILD POETRY PRIZE WINNER
Yves Olade on Dark When It Gets Dark— is about desire, about gentleness and grief. The poems think in colors, in shapes, in moods. The collection also speaks to something of honesty, of truth, to the absence of duplicity. What would it mean for something to just be what it was, and nothing else? What if a storm is just a storm, and nothing else? What if it's finally dark when it gets dark?
2020 KINGDOMS IN THE WILD POETRY PRIZE WINNER
51 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 3, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
November 21, 2020
SYMPTOM
The remedy for pain is always more pain.
There’s a logic in that. The way
the radio plays that old song to remind you of autumn. It takes you back. How memory makes everything worse.
That August. Everything red and still on fire,
and what you held came apart in your hands.
The rest of the story still catches in your mouth.
How it's always too soon. How you never open up.
Time has its own axis, turning out of joint.
Things come around on their own.
Or they don’t. And nothing lasts forever, after all.
Yves Olade is a powerful emerging poetic voice, engaging vehemently with the social unrest and political conditions in postcolonial Nigeria. In this prizewinning chapbook Dark When it Gets Dark Olade's multifaceted intricate aesthetics is revealed through the vivid imagery end experimental forms in his poems. He juxtaposes a Christian ethos with a revolutionary zeal embedded within a materialist discourse. His preoccupation with the body foregrounds the stark reality of the violence inflicted upon it, as well the undeniable temptation to transcend it with the force of the immutable spirit - an act of resistance through art.
LAGOS WINTER
In the year of my mother’s tongue
& of my father's right hand see memory
rain from
heaven like a shower of bullets
hear the tear gas sing
LAGOS WINTER II
A cut that takes the lover, but
saves no child. A cut gentle
& perfect as Lagos by moonlight.
Who stops the mosquito from piercing any
chest? O wind, O witness. Say
bullet hole say heart-wound.
Say, God, forgive them
they know not what they are doing.
& still, in the night,
hear us sing into the darkness
& dance into the
hunger of the earth
this wild & jealous earth
we call
our country.
Nigeria has been mired in riots and brutal repression this year. The police opened fire on hundreds of unarmed protesters in Lagos, boycotting the draconian SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad) which has been involved in extra-judicial executions and corruption. Olade expresses the afflictions plaguing his country and the naked searing pain with a grotesque realism that denudes the intensity of remorseless violence.
DÉSOLÉ
what creature are you becoming?
clawing your skin to ribbons? eating your own
hunger? begging your blood back into his hands?
body in the river, body in the lake. body in the
water tells you autumn is over. say winter, say fall.
gentle as his hands around your throat. perfect as
the red fruit, bruising between itself and the floor.
He experiments with a staccato rhythm, a form that speaks as much as the content
TRAUMA GUIDE TO GUNSHOT WOUNDS
absolution · in exchange · for doing · unto others · what they · have done · unto you · but violence · is built · to be wider · always · on the other side · sing elegies · to the exit wound · but pain · is still · the shortest distance · between · two bodies · is still · the only ghost · between the human · and divine ·
I perceive the influence of Ocean Vuong and to some extent Ilya Kaminsky in Olade's poetry. Violence is never far from eroticism, and a bleak despair casts a shroud on a fragile faith - of an ephemeral hope enamoured by irreconcilable distances.
PANORAMA OF A DREAM
This, the distance. From body
through to body. From grief to new grief. The
sun in August. The sun in autumn. Heart of
despair, burning on the porch. House at
midnight, house at dawn. Staircase red with fear.
Staircase blue with longing. Say killing, say
kindness. From room to room, from morning
through to morning
My heartfelt gratitude to Kingdoms in the Wild for the ARC of this splendid chapbook.
The remedy for pain is always more pain.
There’s a logic in that. The way
the radio plays that old song to remind you of autumn. It takes you back. How memory makes everything worse.
That August. Everything red and still on fire,
and what you held came apart in your hands.
The rest of the story still catches in your mouth.
How it's always too soon. How you never open up.
Time has its own axis, turning out of joint.
Things come around on their own.
Or they don’t. And nothing lasts forever, after all.
Yves Olade is a powerful emerging poetic voice, engaging vehemently with the social unrest and political conditions in postcolonial Nigeria. In this prizewinning chapbook Dark When it Gets Dark Olade's multifaceted intricate aesthetics is revealed through the vivid imagery end experimental forms in his poems. He juxtaposes a Christian ethos with a revolutionary zeal embedded within a materialist discourse. His preoccupation with the body foregrounds the stark reality of the violence inflicted upon it, as well the undeniable temptation to transcend it with the force of the immutable spirit - an act of resistance through art.
LAGOS WINTER
In the year of my mother’s tongue
& of my father's right hand see memory
rain from
heaven like a shower of bullets
hear the tear gas sing
LAGOS WINTER II
A cut that takes the lover, but
saves no child. A cut gentle
& perfect as Lagos by moonlight.
Who stops the mosquito from piercing any
chest? O wind, O witness. Say
bullet hole say heart-wound.
Say, God, forgive them
they know not what they are doing.
& still, in the night,
hear us sing into the darkness
& dance into the
hunger of the earth
this wild & jealous earth
we call
our country.
Nigeria has been mired in riots and brutal repression this year. The police opened fire on hundreds of unarmed protesters in Lagos, boycotting the draconian SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad) which has been involved in extra-judicial executions and corruption. Olade expresses the afflictions plaguing his country and the naked searing pain with a grotesque realism that denudes the intensity of remorseless violence.
DÉSOLÉ
what creature are you becoming?
clawing your skin to ribbons? eating your own
hunger? begging your blood back into his hands?
body in the river, body in the lake. body in the
water tells you autumn is over. say winter, say fall.
gentle as his hands around your throat. perfect as
the red fruit, bruising between itself and the floor.
He experiments with a staccato rhythm, a form that speaks as much as the content
TRAUMA GUIDE TO GUNSHOT WOUNDS
absolution · in exchange · for doing · unto others · what they · have done · unto you · but violence · is built · to be wider · always · on the other side · sing elegies · to the exit wound · but pain · is still · the shortest distance · between · two bodies · is still · the only ghost · between the human · and divine ·
I perceive the influence of Ocean Vuong and to some extent Ilya Kaminsky in Olade's poetry. Violence is never far from eroticism, and a bleak despair casts a shroud on a fragile faith - of an ephemeral hope enamoured by irreconcilable distances.
PANORAMA OF A DREAM
This, the distance. From body
through to body. From grief to new grief. The
sun in August. The sun in autumn. Heart of
despair, burning on the porch. House at
midnight, house at dawn. Staircase red with fear.
Staircase blue with longing. Say killing, say
kindness. From room to room, from morning
through to morning
My heartfelt gratitude to Kingdoms in the Wild for the ARC of this splendid chapbook.
November 23, 2020
Time has its own axis, turning out of joint.
Things come around on their own.
Or they don’t. And nothing lasts forever, after all.
This collection is one of wounds and ampersands. The former are bullet holes, bruises and the whelps of despair. The latter populate the strange line structure, they lend to a possible music, but the images themselves are rather basic. There's little heat and certainly no heft.
There's a parenthetical eroticism but it remains as unspoken as what passes for landscapes, ones which are depicted as either red or blue. I was disappointed. Monochromatic reality should have a defining character.
Thanks to Kingdom in the Wild press for the ARC.
Things come around on their own.
Or they don’t. And nothing lasts forever, after all.
This collection is one of wounds and ampersands. The former are bullet holes, bruises and the whelps of despair. The latter populate the strange line structure, they lend to a possible music, but the images themselves are rather basic. There's little heat and certainly no heft.
There's a parenthetical eroticism but it remains as unspoken as what passes for landscapes, ones which are depicted as either red or blue. I was disappointed. Monochromatic reality should have a defining character.
Thanks to Kingdom in the Wild press for the ARC.
March 30, 2022
“a lamb that will not bite the wolf was not born hungry enough. but i was born hungry enough.”
holy shit. that’s all i have to say, really.
holy shit. that’s all i have to say, really.
November 28, 2020
271120: shoutout to Lydia & Kingdoms in the Wild Press for providing me with an arc of this! rtc sometime this weekend
281120: like most collections, somewhat uneven, but also like most collections, there are a couple of gems. the standout poems for me were “lagos winter,” “trauma guide to gunshot wounds,” and “eden.” there's some lovely language in this—have an excerpt from "lagos winter ii", par example:
there's some interesting stuff going on formally, too—olade definitely takes advantage of the field of the page; though not always entirely successful, it's still interesting and visually arresting. especially of note wrt form are both "trauma guide" poems. also, i'm a hoe for an aesthetic ampersand! interested to see where olade goes from here with his poetry.
281120: like most collections, somewhat uneven, but also like most collections, there are a couple of gems. the standout poems for me were “lagos winter,” “trauma guide to gunshot wounds,” and “eden.” there's some lovely language in this—have an excerpt from "lagos winter ii", par example:
In the year of my body
of my body's own bones
of my bones' own marrow—
see the sun set the stained glass alight
there's some interesting stuff going on formally, too—olade definitely takes advantage of the field of the page; though not always entirely successful, it's still interesting and visually arresting. especially of note wrt form are both "trauma guide" poems. also, i'm a hoe for an aesthetic ampersand! interested to see where olade goes from here with his poetry.
December 19, 2020
In "Dark When it Gets Dark", Yves Olade beautifully both works in abstracts and deeply grounded imagery as he constructs and deconstructs the terrors of desire through his memory.
In the first pieces of the collection, "Lagos Winter" and "Lagos Winter II", he sets the stage for themes like Christianity and violence as well as imagery of nature and body while recounting years gone past from the recesses of his memory.
In pieces like "Black Teeth", "Topography", and "Savage", Olade speaks more to violence inflicted on the mind when suffering from the lows of desire, where one is filled with an emptiness that seems unfillable.
"Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds" recalls as Olade gets an answer to the call of desire, but in the most anguishing and painful way-in the form of the a lover that doesn't love.
"Cut", "Samarra", "Panorama of a Dream", "Incision", and "Désolé" describe the lengths to which one goes to fill themselves when they're empty by taking any form of love given, even the ones that make the emptiness worse when left alone.
"Eden" brings us to a more clear picture of the relationship in which Olade recognizes the power inequality that exists in the relationship, even calling his lover "God", but still being trapped in the relationship due to the desire to be loved.
"Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds II" and "Tempest" act as partners as Olade untangles how love hurts us in different ways.
The former describes how being loved by another, even in a hurtful way, even by an evil person, can be better than letting them go. The latter describes how being loved by the same someone, in the same way, can also lead to the same conclusion where the feeling of emptiness never leaves, so it may be better to be alone.
"Symptom (after Reyna N.A.)" concludes the collection in a beautiful way by reflecting on how we cope after trauma from relationships.
How sometimes you just can't bring yourself to speak about it. How other times it just spills out in an uncontrollable and unwanted way. How you mentally reconfigure and reexplain memories in your head. How you continue to exist while having all these thoughts, feelings, and emotions in your head.
The poem and the entirely of the collection ends with these words, which I think eloquently speak to the purpose and intent of the collection as a whole:
"You think the remedy for pain is always more pain.
This too, I think, is a symptom."
Overall, I think that "Dark When it Gets Dark" is a beautifully constructed and evocative reflection on the darkness of desiring to be loved.
*Thank you to Kingdoms in the Wild for sending me an ARC for review.
In the first pieces of the collection, "Lagos Winter" and "Lagos Winter II", he sets the stage for themes like Christianity and violence as well as imagery of nature and body while recounting years gone past from the recesses of his memory.
In pieces like "Black Teeth", "Topography", and "Savage", Olade speaks more to violence inflicted on the mind when suffering from the lows of desire, where one is filled with an emptiness that seems unfillable.
"Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds" recalls as Olade gets an answer to the call of desire, but in the most anguishing and painful way-in the form of the a lover that doesn't love.
"Cut", "Samarra", "Panorama of a Dream", "Incision", and "Désolé" describe the lengths to which one goes to fill themselves when they're empty by taking any form of love given, even the ones that make the emptiness worse when left alone.
"Eden" brings us to a more clear picture of the relationship in which Olade recognizes the power inequality that exists in the relationship, even calling his lover "God", but still being trapped in the relationship due to the desire to be loved.
"Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds II" and "Tempest" act as partners as Olade untangles how love hurts us in different ways.
The former describes how being loved by another, even in a hurtful way, even by an evil person, can be better than letting them go. The latter describes how being loved by the same someone, in the same way, can also lead to the same conclusion where the feeling of emptiness never leaves, so it may be better to be alone.
"Symptom (after Reyna N.A.)" concludes the collection in a beautiful way by reflecting on how we cope after trauma from relationships.
How sometimes you just can't bring yourself to speak about it. How other times it just spills out in an uncontrollable and unwanted way. How you mentally reconfigure and reexplain memories in your head. How you continue to exist while having all these thoughts, feelings, and emotions in your head.
The poem and the entirely of the collection ends with these words, which I think eloquently speak to the purpose and intent of the collection as a whole:
"You think the remedy for pain is always more pain.
This too, I think, is a symptom."
Overall, I think that "Dark When it Gets Dark" is a beautifully constructed and evocative reflection on the darkness of desiring to be loved.
*Thank you to Kingdoms in the Wild for sending me an ARC for review.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 22, 2020
I got the slim collection of poems “Dark When It Gets Dark” by British Nigerian poet Yves Olade from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This is the first time in my life I agreed to do it but the chapbook piqued my interest so I agreed.
Olade himself says he looks for honesty and this is very much what I look for in literature and in particular in poetry. I don’t believe that poetry needs to be autobiographical but the rhythm of the poems must reflect the heartbeat of the author. Olade’s heartbeat is fast; I hear fury, grief, resentment in it. If heartbeat could taste, his would taste bitter and metallic. Olade’s poems are visceral and raw, they smell of blood and open wounds, of pain and exhaustion that come with the realisation of one’s self which is not always on accordance with how one wants to see oneself. The suffering, the loneliness are too much for one person so he invokes God, but does God listen and does he answer? The author, himself a graduate of ancient history, reminds me here of Greek gods crying for Zeus for help and rescue.
I can’t deny that Olade’s poems are intense and filled with longing for what was and was not, for what could be, filled with the desire to undo certain events or words which are merely suggested. However, what I am looking for as well in poetry, besides honesty, is a reflection of the author’s journey, of growth. I failed to find it here. I had the impression that I was reading the same poem, depicting the same state of mind and body, only with words assembled in a different configuration. He himself said in an interview: “Honestly, I tend to conceptualize my work less as a series of poems and more as the same poem, written over and over again in different ways.” I feel it would have been better to call “Dark When It Gets Dark” one long poem, only separated by chapters. It is done brilliantly in “Migritude” by Shailja Patel.
I see a lot of potential in Olade. At the moment he spits out his pain, puts it on the palm of his hand and observes it. Hopefully in the next collection he will wade through pain and emerge from it on a path which will help him grow.
Olade himself says he looks for honesty and this is very much what I look for in literature and in particular in poetry. I don’t believe that poetry needs to be autobiographical but the rhythm of the poems must reflect the heartbeat of the author. Olade’s heartbeat is fast; I hear fury, grief, resentment in it. If heartbeat could taste, his would taste bitter and metallic. Olade’s poems are visceral and raw, they smell of blood and open wounds, of pain and exhaustion that come with the realisation of one’s self which is not always on accordance with how one wants to see oneself. The suffering, the loneliness are too much for one person so he invokes God, but does God listen and does he answer? The author, himself a graduate of ancient history, reminds me here of Greek gods crying for Zeus for help and rescue.
I can’t deny that Olade’s poems are intense and filled with longing for what was and was not, for what could be, filled with the desire to undo certain events or words which are merely suggested. However, what I am looking for as well in poetry, besides honesty, is a reflection of the author’s journey, of growth. I failed to find it here. I had the impression that I was reading the same poem, depicting the same state of mind and body, only with words assembled in a different configuration. He himself said in an interview: “Honestly, I tend to conceptualize my work less as a series of poems and more as the same poem, written over and over again in different ways.” I feel it would have been better to call “Dark When It Gets Dark” one long poem, only separated by chapters. It is done brilliantly in “Migritude” by Shailja Patel.
I see a lot of potential in Olade. At the moment he spits out his pain, puts it on the palm of his hand and observes it. Hopefully in the next collection he will wade through pain and emerge from it on a path which will help him grow.
January 1, 2021
I absolutely loved this collection of poetry. After first flipping through the pages, I was immediately struck by the unique formatting of the poems. The first two poems, "Lagos Winter I" and "Lagos Winter II" immediately caught my attention due to their unique format, which are similar to that of erasure poems though they were not actually erasure poems. I was intrigued by the format of "Trauma Guide to Gun Wounds" and "Trauma Guide to Gun Wounds II" as different phrases in the poem are separated by dots, reminding me of a feature on Microsoft Word that puts little dots in between every word in a document. The little dots themselves also reminded me of gunshot wounds - holes in the page like the hole left in a person after they are shot. Throughout the collection, Olade uses repetition and interesting line breaks to keep the reader wanting to continue his poems. I also found it quite enjoyable how he seems to include two voices in his poems: the speaker and the second voice is either someone who talks to the speaker or what I believe to be the speaker's inner thoughts, signified by italics in each poem. Olade also cleverly connects the poems through various phrases and words and even colors, such as love, red, gold, blood, desire, hunger, and so on. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed "Dark When it Gets Dark" and I highly recommend it!
December 4, 2020
***Thank you to Kingdoms in the Wild team for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!***
The poetry ended right as I wanted to read more! My favorite poems were "Savage" & "Symptom" -- I'll definitely be coming back to re-read these many times in the future & reflect on my own writing style.
This collection of poetry definitely took a couple re-reads for me to understand themes/messages being portrayed as well as allow myself to enjoy the words as they were. And personally as someone who has a really toxic and complicated relationship with religion, the constant mentioning of God and other biblical references (although beautifully woven in) was not for me.
Also, I think moreso related to accessibility/formatting rather than content -- the way certain poems were stylized did strain my eyes a bit and at times left me confused on where I had left off reading. It's definitely a personal preference for me to read poetry in "text only" versions if I am reading online.
Some of my favorite quotes:
"...say kindness. perhaps this too is violence. & so is absence & so is emptiness."
"The remedy for pain is always more pain."
"Say something true and mean it. Watch the world tilt on its axis. -- This is what the story is for."
The poetry ended right as I wanted to read more! My favorite poems were "Savage" & "Symptom" -- I'll definitely be coming back to re-read these many times in the future & reflect on my own writing style.
This collection of poetry definitely took a couple re-reads for me to understand themes/messages being portrayed as well as allow myself to enjoy the words as they were. And personally as someone who has a really toxic and complicated relationship with religion, the constant mentioning of God and other biblical references (although beautifully woven in) was not for me.
Also, I think moreso related to accessibility/formatting rather than content -- the way certain poems were stylized did strain my eyes a bit and at times left me confused on where I had left off reading. It's definitely a personal preference for me to read poetry in "text only" versions if I am reading online.
Some of my favorite quotes:
"...say kindness. perhaps this too is violence. & so is absence & so is emptiness."
"The remedy for pain is always more pain."
"Say something true and mean it. Watch the world tilt on its axis. -- This is what the story is for."
December 28, 2020
Thanks so much to Lydia and Kingdoms in the Wild for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This brief collection of poems by Yves Olade is a beautiful swirl of blue, red, and black, breathtaking as punch to the gut but stilling as a weighted blanket. These poems connected with my own grief and sense of loss but also delved deeper into family history, abusive relationships, and searching for a future, or maybe just the path ahead. At first read through, what stands out is the pain, which jumps off the page instantly in "Lagos Winter" and "Lagos Winter II" and continues all the way through the final words of the collection, finishing "You think the remedy for pain is more pain./This too, I think, is a symptom." On second read through, the connecting imagery in the poems became clearer, with Olade reaching deeply into Christianity, blood, rivers and water, seasons, and hunger, deftly mixing all together. This collection grabbed me by the collar and refused to let me look away, and after reading through again, even the poems that initially hadn't resonated with me were strengthened by their ties to the same imagery with other poems. Gorgeous and painful.
April 30, 2021
Yves Olade’s ‘Dark When it Gets Dark’ is a short collection of poems that packs an emotional wallop. Tackling heavy topics such as mental health, suicidal ideation, and domestic violence, Yves utilizes the space on the page, creative italics, punctuation, and formatting, and biblical imagery to paint an expansive picture of pain. Creative and haunting, the words will rise from the page and imprint on your thoughts long after you put the book down. Don’t be fooled by its brevity: this short text and its poems will stick with you for a while.
December 5, 2024
yves olade, they will never make me hate you.
i say, if you love me, make a corpse / of me. make an autopsy
i say, if you love me, make a corpse / of me. make an autopsy
December 7, 2020
what a collection! some good, some great, some thorough confusion but enjoyable enough to keep me along for the ride. the intermixing, inseparability of violence and grief and desire couldn't help but remind me of "Crush" by Richard Siken. the vagueness, atmospheric ambiguity, but also sharp preciseness that leaves just enough to keep you wondering but not enough to give you the satisfaction of an answer. wonderful. i also am SO weak for the play of visual space in some of his poems. i did try to sit there and wonder why Olade chose to separate certain phrases, create certain silhouettes in the negative space, and though it didn't seem clear to me all the time, i still liked the way he used the paper as a canvas.
Olade also included quite a bit of Christian (i think Christian?? i'm not sure i am not religious at all lmao) imagery, transposed on to violent, anguish-filled imagery, which definitely added complexity and some very interesting juxtapositions. my only problem with this collection is the repetition of some words and ideas in nearly every poem, words like "darkness" and "blood" and "desire" etc. it works to paint such a vivid landscape, but i would have liked if there were new words or phrases to express the ideas Olade is trying to express. but other than that, i really enjoyed this; i fucking love atmospheric writing and imagery, and i absolutely love when seemingly opposite visceral emotions/experiences such as desire and grief, violence and love are artfully mingled to create a conflicting, yet so perfectly put together atmosphere.
my favorite poems were "Lagos Winter", "Lagos Winter II", "Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds", "Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds II", and "Symptom"; "Lagos Winter II" and "Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds" in particular were amazing, the wordplay, the imagery, their demands to be read more than once, stupendous indeed.
i want to end with an excerpt from "Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds" but i am having such a hard time choosing because the whole thing is so fucking good!! i like highlighting lines that i like especially, and i really just highlighted the whole poem lmao, but here are a few lines that i spent like 15 minutes trying to pick out from the rest:
"how I · don’t even · taste · the blood · just felt the burn · going down · and how · it didn’t · mean a thing · it didn’t matter · at all · only proved that · like a bullet · confession can’t · be held · under the tongue · only fired · from the throat · into any body · kind enough · to take it whole · absolution · in exchange · for doing · unto others · what they · have done · unto you"
i think yes.
Olade also included quite a bit of Christian (i think Christian?? i'm not sure i am not religious at all lmao) imagery, transposed on to violent, anguish-filled imagery, which definitely added complexity and some very interesting juxtapositions. my only problem with this collection is the repetition of some words and ideas in nearly every poem, words like "darkness" and "blood" and "desire" etc. it works to paint such a vivid landscape, but i would have liked if there were new words or phrases to express the ideas Olade is trying to express. but other than that, i really enjoyed this; i fucking love atmospheric writing and imagery, and i absolutely love when seemingly opposite visceral emotions/experiences such as desire and grief, violence and love are artfully mingled to create a conflicting, yet so perfectly put together atmosphere.
my favorite poems were "Lagos Winter", "Lagos Winter II", "Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds", "Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds II", and "Symptom"; "Lagos Winter II" and "Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds" in particular were amazing, the wordplay, the imagery, their demands to be read more than once, stupendous indeed.
i want to end with an excerpt from "Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds" but i am having such a hard time choosing because the whole thing is so fucking good!! i like highlighting lines that i like especially, and i really just highlighted the whole poem lmao, but here are a few lines that i spent like 15 minutes trying to pick out from the rest:
"how I · don’t even · taste · the blood · just felt the burn · going down · and how · it didn’t · mean a thing · it didn’t matter · at all · only proved that · like a bullet · confession can’t · be held · under the tongue · only fired · from the throat · into any body · kind enough · to take it whole · absolution · in exchange · for doing · unto others · what they · have done · unto you"
i think yes.
December 20, 2020
I've been reading and rereading this book all month now and I'm finally ready to talk to you about it.
The publishers liked my review of Emily Skaja's Brute (which looking back is pretty short and sweet) and sent me this collection in exchange for a review--with no parameters.
If I didn't like it, I swear I would have told you, albeit gently. Fortunately that's not the case. I will say this is not a collection for the faint of heart. It's dark, full of wounds and abusive imagery, full of pain and longing and painful longing.
It was hard not to read these poems as all connected, as all moments in the same speaker's questioning life--it reads a bit like a book of vignettes, like "House on Mango Street" or something along those lines, where the chronology isn't always clear but there's a through line of emotion and presence.
This is what I came away with, thinking of the speaker as always the same person: this speaker only knows how to experience love as abuse; this speaker aches to be hurt by others as then it knows it is noticed, hated, loved, present. It hurts worse to be absent. This speaker is constantly seeking to be filled--with food, with love, with God's presence. This speaker aches with hunger. This speaker is sometimes sure of themselves ("I was born hungry enough") and sometimes not. This speaker is always answering the question "Who could love you now?" and asking for new wounds. There is a sense of desperation and seeking here, and a sense of wishing they could come to peace with it. The speaker feels the need to self sacrifice and then asks for absolution.
There is a lot of religious imagery; a lot of pain and wound imagery; a lot of craving, longing, yearning, aching.
Here are a couple of quotes:
"but pain * is still * the shortest distance * between * two bodies."
"You think the remedy for pain is always more pain.
This too is a symptom."
"each body * sings it own * song * sings agony * sings grief * a memory * a promise * that what * cruelty * puts in * to you * it will somehow * take out * again."
This was an intense read, but one I was really engaged with. It was interesting to be reading this here and now, during Advent 2020, when we are all trying so desperately to have hope, to find a way out of this gnawing emptiness the pandemic has ushered in.
Repeated themes in this collection (other than pain): seasons, water, hands, guns, religion (God / liturgy / prayer / hymns / confession / absolution), hunger and emptiness, red / blood / gold.
The publishers liked my review of Emily Skaja's Brute (which looking back is pretty short and sweet) and sent me this collection in exchange for a review--with no parameters.
If I didn't like it, I swear I would have told you, albeit gently. Fortunately that's not the case. I will say this is not a collection for the faint of heart. It's dark, full of wounds and abusive imagery, full of pain and longing and painful longing.
It was hard not to read these poems as all connected, as all moments in the same speaker's questioning life--it reads a bit like a book of vignettes, like "House on Mango Street" or something along those lines, where the chronology isn't always clear but there's a through line of emotion and presence.
This is what I came away with, thinking of the speaker as always the same person: this speaker only knows how to experience love as abuse; this speaker aches to be hurt by others as then it knows it is noticed, hated, loved, present. It hurts worse to be absent. This speaker is constantly seeking to be filled--with food, with love, with God's presence. This speaker aches with hunger. This speaker is sometimes sure of themselves ("I was born hungry enough") and sometimes not. This speaker is always answering the question "Who could love you now?" and asking for new wounds. There is a sense of desperation and seeking here, and a sense of wishing they could come to peace with it. The speaker feels the need to self sacrifice and then asks for absolution.
There is a lot of religious imagery; a lot of pain and wound imagery; a lot of craving, longing, yearning, aching.
Here are a couple of quotes:
"but pain * is still * the shortest distance * between * two bodies."
"You think the remedy for pain is always more pain.
This too is a symptom."
"each body * sings it own * song * sings agony * sings grief * a memory * a promise * that what * cruelty * puts in * to you * it will somehow * take out * again."
This was an intense read, but one I was really engaged with. It was interesting to be reading this here and now, during Advent 2020, when we are all trying so desperately to have hope, to find a way out of this gnawing emptiness the pandemic has ushered in.
Repeated themes in this collection (other than pain): seasons, water, hands, guns, religion (God / liturgy / prayer / hymns / confession / absolution), hunger and emptiness, red / blood / gold.
December 20, 2020
There's a recklessness or contained chaos in these poems. Olade peels back layers and layers of darkness. The language forms an architecture of Lagos and human bodies twined with religious allusions, longing, dreams, and death.
Two poems that moved me were "Lagos Winter" and its sequel, which grieve for family, neighbours, the blood of a country:
some who lived; some who died/ some who swallowed/ ocean like a final meal, blessed/ the water over & over.
Gold,/ in the empty street,/ gold, in the desperate night.
even the crickets pray, cold hands/ held together,/ begging for one/ empty morning. No caskets: no sons/ no daughters/ floating in the river./ Singing hymns/ into the night,/ their palms turned up. Their bodies/ cold as ice.
These two poems begin the collection with a broad scope that grows contracted and intimate in later poems. They introduce the presence of hunger and death; in later poems, this hunger grows to starvation, "savage" and begging; death is tied to desire, violence is confused with love. These poems reveal despair through speeches both unreliable and heavy with conviction:
a/ lamb that will not bite/ the wolf was not/ born hungry enough.
like a bullet - confession can't - be held - under the tongue - only fired - from the throat - into any body - kind enough - to take it whole - absolution - in exchange - for doing - onto other - what they - have done - onto you
the blood - becoming - its own - sacrament - the body broken - into pieces - small - enough to - consume and - not enough - to satisfy
The latter two excerpts are from "Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds," which, with its sequel, were strong experiments with disjointed, trauma-stricken consciousness.
There are a few poems toward the middle and end that reused similar ideas, similar phrases: bruising, violence, love as death, burying wrists, August. These felt like a catharsis, tension and release, but they became derivative. The final poem, "Symptom," seemed to me a muddling through rather than the passage to an ending.
Olade has a rich style fashioned from earth, blood, and gold. I enjoyed the reading overall, but was disappointed that the collection lost tension in the second half.
Two poems that moved me were "Lagos Winter" and its sequel, which grieve for family, neighbours, the blood of a country:
some who lived; some who died/ some who swallowed/ ocean like a final meal, blessed/ the water over & over.
Gold,/ in the empty street,/ gold, in the desperate night.
even the crickets pray, cold hands/ held together,/ begging for one/ empty morning. No caskets: no sons/ no daughters/ floating in the river./ Singing hymns/ into the night,/ their palms turned up. Their bodies/ cold as ice.
These two poems begin the collection with a broad scope that grows contracted and intimate in later poems. They introduce the presence of hunger and death; in later poems, this hunger grows to starvation, "savage" and begging; death is tied to desire, violence is confused with love. These poems reveal despair through speeches both unreliable and heavy with conviction:
a/ lamb that will not bite/ the wolf was not/ born hungry enough.
like a bullet - confession can't - be held - under the tongue - only fired - from the throat - into any body - kind enough - to take it whole - absolution - in exchange - for doing - onto other - what they - have done - onto you
the blood - becoming - its own - sacrament - the body broken - into pieces - small - enough to - consume and - not enough - to satisfy
The latter two excerpts are from "Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds," which, with its sequel, were strong experiments with disjointed, trauma-stricken consciousness.
There are a few poems toward the middle and end that reused similar ideas, similar phrases: bruising, violence, love as death, burying wrists, August. These felt like a catharsis, tension and release, but they became derivative. The final poem, "Symptom," seemed to me a muddling through rather than the passage to an ending.
Olade has a rich style fashioned from earth, blood, and gold. I enjoyed the reading overall, but was disappointed that the collection lost tension in the second half.
February 3, 2021
This is a short collection of poems by Yves Olade and I found them a fine read.
There is a darkness to this collection. There is a lot of blood, bullets, and breaking. There is water. There are bodies in the water. Even love in this collection seems violent and painful. There is suffering, whether that be suffering in love, in pain, or because of memories and experience. Thematically it seems hard work, but it pulls at you and gets under your skin.
The poems are also often interesting within the frame of the page. Sometimes a solid block of prose-poetry. Sometimes the words and spaces break a poem into small chunks and I long to hear how they sound out loud. I tried to read them out loud - it is something I like to do with poetry - but I fear I wouldn't do them justice. With 'Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds' and 'Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds II' words and phrases a split by a single dot:
I turned · the chamber · of a gun · and dared to ask · for its truth · there is nothing · but death · on the other side ·
(From Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds, Page 23).
I could read those dots as bullet holes or the terrifying black dot of a gun barrel. Or as just dots. But I don't think poets make those decisions arbitrarily. They are deliberate choices, which goes for how a poet decides to display the words on the page. I've started recently to think of the page of a poetry book like the frame of a painting.
The choices Yves Olade makes in this collection are interesting, but there's a fine line for poets or wannabe poets whether this is essential to what they are trying to say or just a way to make something look more obviously like a poem.
What this chapbook does is make me want to hear Yves Olade read and to follow his next steps. What more does one want from a collection like this? Worth a look. Worth a follow.
O, and I should apologise to Yves Olade and the publisher, Kingdom in the Wild. They sent me this to review and the review should have gone up before the 31st of December. It didn't. Obviously. There were reasons, which aren't particularly interesting. I finally thought I should do it.
There is a darkness to this collection. There is a lot of blood, bullets, and breaking. There is water. There are bodies in the water. Even love in this collection seems violent and painful. There is suffering, whether that be suffering in love, in pain, or because of memories and experience. Thematically it seems hard work, but it pulls at you and gets under your skin.
The poems are also often interesting within the frame of the page. Sometimes a solid block of prose-poetry. Sometimes the words and spaces break a poem into small chunks and I long to hear how they sound out loud. I tried to read them out loud - it is something I like to do with poetry - but I fear I wouldn't do them justice. With 'Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds' and 'Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds II' words and phrases a split by a single dot:
I turned · the chamber · of a gun · and dared to ask · for its truth · there is nothing · but death · on the other side ·
(From Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds, Page 23).
I could read those dots as bullet holes or the terrifying black dot of a gun barrel. Or as just dots. But I don't think poets make those decisions arbitrarily. They are deliberate choices, which goes for how a poet decides to display the words on the page. I've started recently to think of the page of a poetry book like the frame of a painting.
The choices Yves Olade makes in this collection are interesting, but there's a fine line for poets or wannabe poets whether this is essential to what they are trying to say or just a way to make something look more obviously like a poem.
What this chapbook does is make me want to hear Yves Olade read and to follow his next steps. What more does one want from a collection like this? Worth a look. Worth a follow.
O, and I should apologise to Yves Olade and the publisher, Kingdom in the Wild. They sent me this to review and the review should have gone up before the 31st of December. It didn't. Obviously. There were reasons, which aren't particularly interesting. I finally thought I should do it.
December 4, 2020
Yves Olade's Dark When It Gets Dark seems tailor-made for a pandemic. The 15 poems in the collection are wrapped in gloom, daubed in blood and salted with broken glass and ashes.
I read these silently and aloud. The latter is more effective at emphasizing wordplay. But doing that also demonstrates how much repetition there is in the work. There's darkness, rivers, blood and blades or bullets on page after page. I wanted different words to add shading, dimension. There's eroticism, but it's mixed with pain, even sodomy turned sacrament.
Olade's work tends to be pell-mell, a flash flood of words. It's up to the reader to discover structure, which is why recitation seems to be effective. Religious imagery, hymns and prayerful invocations make regular appearances here.
Among the poems, I preferred "Lagos Winter I," "Lagos Winter II," "Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds" and "Symptom." This collection sent me in search of other poems from Olade. All told, they show promise.
Some arresting word construction:
"See memory rain from heaven like a shower of bullets
hear the tear gas sing -- & speak the language of my fathers fore, some who lived; some who died, some who swallowed ocean like a final meal, blessed the water over & over."
"Begging for one empty morning. No caskets: no sons, no daughters floating in the river. ... Hear the dirt cry out for a night with nothing to grieve, with no graves to dig."
"Hold my head underwater, so sweet. Like you mean it, like you always meant to save me. Call it morning, call it mourning. Perfect as the slain faun. How we broke the skin of the water & called it holy."
"You fold sorrow in on itself, until it's too small to do you any damage. ... Watch the world tilt on its axis. ... A lie is just a memory told in the wrong order."
I received an advance review copy of Dark When it Gets Dark.
I read these silently and aloud. The latter is more effective at emphasizing wordplay. But doing that also demonstrates how much repetition there is in the work. There's darkness, rivers, blood and blades or bullets on page after page. I wanted different words to add shading, dimension. There's eroticism, but it's mixed with pain, even sodomy turned sacrament.
Olade's work tends to be pell-mell, a flash flood of words. It's up to the reader to discover structure, which is why recitation seems to be effective. Religious imagery, hymns and prayerful invocations make regular appearances here.
Among the poems, I preferred "Lagos Winter I," "Lagos Winter II," "Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds" and "Symptom." This collection sent me in search of other poems from Olade. All told, they show promise.
Some arresting word construction:
"See memory rain from heaven like a shower of bullets
hear the tear gas sing -- & speak the language of my fathers fore, some who lived; some who died, some who swallowed ocean like a final meal, blessed the water over & over."
"Begging for one empty morning. No caskets: no sons, no daughters floating in the river. ... Hear the dirt cry out for a night with nothing to grieve, with no graves to dig."
"Hold my head underwater, so sweet. Like you mean it, like you always meant to save me. Call it morning, call it mourning. Perfect as the slain faun. How we broke the skin of the water & called it holy."
"You fold sorrow in on itself, until it's too small to do you any damage. ... Watch the world tilt on its axis. ... A lie is just a memory told in the wrong order."
I received an advance review copy of Dark When it Gets Dark.
December 30, 2020
O, what beautiful music lies in these poems. Refrains and motifs beautifully repeating throughout each piece weaving a gorgeous, violent, sorrowful tapestry. I suggest you read the poems aloud or you will miss out on the subtle cadences and drum beat rhythm.
I enjoyed the structure of these poems which did them well in regards to the music mentioned above, punctuating those repeated words: swallow, hunger, grief, break/broke, mouth, empty, hands, body, autumn.
The book is short and filled with exquisite power, the power of love & violence intertwined, the confusion of religious indoctrination & the sacred, the dysfunctional cultural confusion of sex & love that wounds.
There were many stand alone lines in all the poems giving sharp insights. From the last poem in the book which may be my favorite, 'Symptom':
"...you fold sorrow in on itself, until it's too small to do any damage."
"A lie is just a memory told in the wrong order."
"Killing becoming kinder the longer you watch."
"You think the remedy for pain is always more pain.
This too I think is a symptom."
I read the book twice trying to decipher which poems struck me the most; I could not as I kept changing what struck me. This slim book felt like one long poem to me, and it's a glorious gut-punching one. Highly recommend!
~I received an advance copy for "Dark When it Gets Dark" to write an honest review from Kingdoms in the Wild Press~
I enjoyed the structure of these poems which did them well in regards to the music mentioned above, punctuating those repeated words: swallow, hunger, grief, break/broke, mouth, empty, hands, body, autumn.
The book is short and filled with exquisite power, the power of love & violence intertwined, the confusion of religious indoctrination & the sacred, the dysfunctional cultural confusion of sex & love that wounds.
There were many stand alone lines in all the poems giving sharp insights. From the last poem in the book which may be my favorite, 'Symptom':
"...you fold sorrow in on itself, until it's too small to do any damage."
"A lie is just a memory told in the wrong order."
"Killing becoming kinder the longer you watch."
"You think the remedy for pain is always more pain.
This too I think is a symptom."
I read the book twice trying to decipher which poems struck me the most; I could not as I kept changing what struck me. This slim book felt like one long poem to me, and it's a glorious gut-punching one. Highly recommend!
~I received an advance copy for "Dark When it Gets Dark" to write an honest review from Kingdoms in the Wild Press~
December 27, 2020
Grappling with history and bodies in movement, this poetry collection by Yves Olade is reminiscent of the recent work of Eduardo C. Corral and Jake Skeets, tracking efforts to locate home in bodies and murmured recitations. As a collection, “Dark When It Gets Dark” assesses grim subject matter, but it is artful in tracking that passage away from categories of home, noting (as the introductorary poem “Lagos Winter” records) both “some who lived; some who died, / some who swallowed / ocean like a final meal.” Olade’s phrasings draws on images of perseverance amidst pain, strength amidst suffering, and that conviction helps the lyricism of each poem nourish even when it explores the throes of a haunted hymn. What makes the collection—especially “Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds,” “Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds II,” and “Symptom”—stand out is Olade’s willingness to grapple with a will to avoid power rather than succumb to the degradation of it, drawing on ancient and Biblical antecedents as echoes for his own speaker’s struggles.
This is a collection that knows of blood and hunting, desire and pain, but it is never simple or obvious in its turns of phrase or narrative pivots.
I received an ARC copy for "Dark When it Gets Dark" in exchange for providing an honest review.
This is a collection that knows of blood and hunting, desire and pain, but it is never simple or obvious in its turns of phrase or narrative pivots.
I received an ARC copy for "Dark When it Gets Dark" in exchange for providing an honest review.
November 26, 2020
***I was given an advanced copy for "Dark When it Gets Dark" to provide an honest review.***
This collection of poems offers a journey through an unsettling landscape of language and rhythm. Olade tactfully tangles the reader in images of violence and injury by creating a sense of suffocation. In “Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds”, the words literally suffocate the page; all space is used up by the rush and momentum of the poem.
Olade takes risks with form; few of the poems look the same on the page. The choice of having unique forms creates a disjointedness that adds to a deeper meaning to the collection as a whole. There is pain, hurt, and chaos and Olade grounds the reader in universal truths by focusing on the personal and the intimate.
Since I read all of these poems aloud, I found the first ten were the strongest. However, in the final poems, the rhythm was not consistent with the whole collection. I feel this collection could have benefitted from these final poems having more flow and alignment.
Notable poems:
Lagos in Winter
Lagos in Winter II
Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds
Incision
This collection of poems offers a journey through an unsettling landscape of language and rhythm. Olade tactfully tangles the reader in images of violence and injury by creating a sense of suffocation. In “Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds”, the words literally suffocate the page; all space is used up by the rush and momentum of the poem.
Olade takes risks with form; few of the poems look the same on the page. The choice of having unique forms creates a disjointedness that adds to a deeper meaning to the collection as a whole. There is pain, hurt, and chaos and Olade grounds the reader in universal truths by focusing on the personal and the intimate.
Since I read all of these poems aloud, I found the first ten were the strongest. However, in the final poems, the rhythm was not consistent with the whole collection. I feel this collection could have benefitted from these final poems having more flow and alignment.
Notable poems:
Lagos in Winter
Lagos in Winter II
Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds
Incision
November 26, 2020
I got the opportunity to read this early and I really enjoyed this collection. I’ve been trying to get more into poetry lately and this is one that I’ll definitely be recommending to my friends who are doing the same. The writing was just painfully beautiful but I also thought it was accessible to and would be appreciated by those that aren’t poetry experts (me included in that).
He repeats a lot of phrases throughout the collection, but plays with the formatting which provides a lot of variety visually as you read through. He writes about love but with a lot of underlying themes of religious shame, pain, and childhood trauma.
My absolute favorite poem in the collection was Cut which starts with the line:
“Now you need his love again, like it’s summer, and there’s blood by the river-bank.”
And later with:
“Like his mouth has made you with the sweetest violence, his hands the most holy ruin. You could pull the stars apart and still be gentle in the morning.”
(Ugh so good!). Overall this was a quick read that I thoroughly enjoyed and definitely plan to return to and recommend to those getting started in poetry reading.
He repeats a lot of phrases throughout the collection, but plays with the formatting which provides a lot of variety visually as you read through. He writes about love but with a lot of underlying themes of religious shame, pain, and childhood trauma.
My absolute favorite poem in the collection was Cut which starts with the line:
“Now you need his love again, like it’s summer, and there’s blood by the river-bank.”
And later with:
“Like his mouth has made you with the sweetest violence, his hands the most holy ruin. You could pull the stars apart and still be gentle in the morning.”
(Ugh so good!). Overall this was a quick read that I thoroughly enjoyed and definitely plan to return to and recommend to those getting started in poetry reading.
December 29, 2020
Disclosure: I was given an electronic copy for review - but then bought my own in print, since I liked it so much. (Also appreciated the supplemental material in the print version.)
There is such a loveliness to his lines and phrases, such beauty in how he writes about death and violence (which permeates this collection completely), making it all the more heart-rending. I was drawn in also by the changing structure and syntax of the poems, noting which poems seemed to relate to each other through that, and the use of absence, especially in those poems seemingly most about desire. As someone figuring out how to write about absence and intimate violence for myself, I appreciated these examples.
Two other aspects of his language moved me. First was the use of the phrases "O" and "say", echoing throughout. Yes, tell the stories, speak, name everything! Then, related, was the way these poems call (to my ear) on the Psalms - in form (repetition, pull and sway of lines) and in their content of lament.
So I am grateful for this collection, both as beautiful, moving poems in their own sake, and for the ways they move me to consider my own work.
There is such a loveliness to his lines and phrases, such beauty in how he writes about death and violence (which permeates this collection completely), making it all the more heart-rending. I was drawn in also by the changing structure and syntax of the poems, noting which poems seemed to relate to each other through that, and the use of absence, especially in those poems seemingly most about desire. As someone figuring out how to write about absence and intimate violence for myself, I appreciated these examples.
Two other aspects of his language moved me. First was the use of the phrases "O" and "say", echoing throughout. Yes, tell the stories, speak, name everything! Then, related, was the way these poems call (to my ear) on the Psalms - in form (repetition, pull and sway of lines) and in their content of lament.
So I am grateful for this collection, both as beautiful, moving poems in their own sake, and for the ways they move me to consider my own work.
December 30, 2020
[thanks to Kingdoms in the Wild for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review!]
3.5/5
i really enjoyed this one! olaude has a real gift for hard-hitting phrases--"even the crickets pray, cold hands / held together" in "Lagos Winter II," for example, or "pain · is still · the shortest distance · between · two bodies" in "Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds." there's a distinct sense of layering in this book, at least for me; the poems build and continue from each other, with shared images and refrains. most of the time this was a positive, but in a few places it felt more repetitive than reiterative. my favorite of the group was the (comparatively) long concluding poem, "symptom," which is absolutely gorgeous. second-person is always a little iffy for me (i think because it's my own default form of poetic address lmao this is no critique of anyone else) but it works so well in that poem in particular, where it gradually becomes clear that the "you" to whom the poem is addressed might just be its own speaker.
overall--a genuine pleasure to read & one i'll probably return to!
3.5/5
i really enjoyed this one! olaude has a real gift for hard-hitting phrases--"even the crickets pray, cold hands / held together" in "Lagos Winter II," for example, or "pain · is still · the shortest distance · between · two bodies" in "Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds." there's a distinct sense of layering in this book, at least for me; the poems build and continue from each other, with shared images and refrains. most of the time this was a positive, but in a few places it felt more repetitive than reiterative. my favorite of the group was the (comparatively) long concluding poem, "symptom," which is absolutely gorgeous. second-person is always a little iffy for me (i think because it's my own default form of poetic address lmao this is no critique of anyone else) but it works so well in that poem in particular, where it gradually becomes clear that the "you" to whom the poem is addressed might just be its own speaker.
overall--a genuine pleasure to read & one i'll probably return to!
May 13, 2021
I was given this copy by the publishers, Kingdoms in the Wild, for review.
So, how dark does it get? Well, pretty dark! There are knives and guns, cuts and wounds, and blood: lots of blood! Even the love poems have their dark and violent side. That's not to say these poems aren't lyrical and beautiful, with some striking lines like "the lamb that will not bite the wolf was not born hungry enough" (Black Teeth). "all I am & all I was: foolish/ enough to have come back;/ foolish enough to have gone." (Samarra) Surprisingly, I thought I detected a nod to the last line of Charles Causley's Eden Rock, "I had not thought it would be like this" in "I didn't think it would feel like this" (Panorama of a Dream). Coincidence? Possibly, who can say, apart from Yves Olade himself? There are several formats or layouts used, some which seem to have more significance than others. Lagos Winter I and II have short phrases of a few words interspersed with gaps which struck me could represent gasps for breath, as if written from the point of view of a witness to some terrible event who has been running away from the scene, but I suppose each reader can think of their own explanation. The use of & for and could also signify the shortness of breath. Lagos Winter II also includes some nice alliteration; "see the sun set the stained glass alight". The format of Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds I and II also seems significant. Here the short phrases are separated by dots, maybe representing the actual gunshots? Something to think about anyway, which could apply to the whole chapbook, really!
So, how dark does it get? Well, pretty dark! There are knives and guns, cuts and wounds, and blood: lots of blood! Even the love poems have their dark and violent side. That's not to say these poems aren't lyrical and beautiful, with some striking lines like "the lamb that will not bite the wolf was not born hungry enough" (Black Teeth). "all I am & all I was: foolish/ enough to have come back;/ foolish enough to have gone." (Samarra) Surprisingly, I thought I detected a nod to the last line of Charles Causley's Eden Rock, "I had not thought it would be like this" in "I didn't think it would feel like this" (Panorama of a Dream). Coincidence? Possibly, who can say, apart from Yves Olade himself? There are several formats or layouts used, some which seem to have more significance than others. Lagos Winter I and II have short phrases of a few words interspersed with gaps which struck me could represent gasps for breath, as if written from the point of view of a witness to some terrible event who has been running away from the scene, but I suppose each reader can think of their own explanation. The use of & for and could also signify the shortness of breath. Lagos Winter II also includes some nice alliteration; "see the sun set the stained glass alight". The format of Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds I and II also seems significant. Here the short phrases are separated by dots, maybe representing the actual gunshots? Something to think about anyway, which could apply to the whole chapbook, really!
December 12, 2020
In these poems, British-Nigerian poet, Yves Olade seems to be riding a river where one bank is grief and the other is desire. The poems struck me as at once both visceral and disembodied. The language is imbued with oil, blood, water, milk and honey, a constant investigation of love and pain. Olade also seems to be interrogating this relationship: "you think the remedy for pain is always more pain. This too, I think, is a symptom." In places, he seems to be holding these themes a bit too tightly. In other places, his experimentation with form really pays off. In particular, I loved reading aloud the perfect staccato of "Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds II." The poems work best when aphorism and disclosure is mixed with imagery. This collection is worth your time.
*A thank you to Kingdoms in the Wild who sent me an e-copy of this collection in exchange for an honest review.*
*A thank you to Kingdoms in the Wild who sent me an e-copy of this collection in exchange for an honest review.*
December 22, 2020
I wasn’t sure about this collection for the first few poems, then “Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds” punched me in the gut. From that point, these poems grab on and don’t let go. The images are so open and raw, it’s like looking straight into a still bleeding wound. And Olade will not let you look away. He keeps your face pressed in the blood until you share his pain. It is gorgeous and utterly heartbreaking poetry. Read this, yes, but do not plan to read this straight through. You will need to step away from this to catch your breath.
Because this poetry is so raw, I’m including a few content warnings.
CW: Violence, Abuse, Cutting
Because this poetry is so raw, I’m including a few content warnings.
CW: Violence, Abuse, Cutting
April 11, 2022
It's beautiful, haunting and definitely not a "I feel like reading something light today" book. As Yves Olade puts it, it's a study on honesty. With any of his poems, it just pulls you in with language that's so unapologetically brutal in both a violent way a and a "the only way to describe the way I'm feeling is through images" way.
It's a short-but-packed collection of poems that chronicle the metamorphosis that describes the certain healing stage when you know you're better, but you've hit a new square one after starting to re-learn everything again.
It's a short-but-packed collection of poems that chronicle the metamorphosis that describes the certain healing stage when you know you're better, but you've hit a new square one after starting to re-learn everything again.
December 31, 2020
In this brief collection of poems, Yves Olade gets into some dark and visceral material. There are references to intense, violent relationships and religious rituals and icons, entwining desire and danger. Olade is talented for sure, and I appreciate both his lyrical daring and approach to form. Many of the poems tread similar territory (on the positive side this gives the collection consistency, on the negative side some poems seem a bit too similar to call the collection really memorable).
My favorites here include imagery in Lagos Winter and Lagos Winter II, and the interplay of themes and ambiguous parsing in Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds, ending with this killer line:
Thank you to Kingdoms in the Wild for a copy in exchange for an honest review. I love when publishers do this and appreciate them reaching out!
My favorites here include imagery in Lagos Winter and Lagos Winter II, and the interplay of themes and ambiguous parsing in Trauma Guide to Gunshot Wounds, ending with this killer line:
the blood · becoming · its own · sacrament · the body broken · into pieces · small · enough to · consume and · not enough · to satisfy.
Thank you to Kingdoms in the Wild for a copy in exchange for an honest review. I love when publishers do this and appreciate them reaching out!
December 30, 2020
This is a chapbook, so it didn't require a huge investment of time. I was eager to read it because I've been looking for poets of color for my British lit class, and I found several here I could teach. If you want to read a poet who does a whole lot with form, this is your guy. I think my students will have lots to say. As I was reading, I felt that he was hitting the same notes a lot -- images of violence permeate the collection -- but then the last poem (also the longest) ties the whole collection together in a really great way.
February 16, 2022
Ive been a fan of Yves Olade for a decent amount of time now and i have such a love for his work. This collection is incredible, there's so much interconnection and little references to his previous works that sparked a lot of joy. on top of that there were lines and excerpts that hit so hard, ones that made me step back and just breathe. As a poet I look up to Olade, not really in an idolized way but more so that his work inspires me greatly. I'm excited for more in the future :)
March 27, 2021
Dark, beautiful, fascinating.
Tons of parallels here between the brutality of love and brutality of nature. In the epilogue Q&A with the author, Yves says he wrote the same poem a bunch of times different ways, and I really felt that from this collection.
Really beautiful, will look for more from this author.
Tons of parallels here between the brutality of love and brutality of nature. In the epilogue Q&A with the author, Yves says he wrote the same poem a bunch of times different ways, and I really felt that from this collection.
Really beautiful, will look for more from this author.
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