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let the dead in
Saida Agostini’s first full-length poetry collection, let the dead, is an exploration of the mythologies that seek to subjugate Black bodies, and the counter-stories that reject such subjugation. Audacious, sensual, and grieving, this work explores how Black women harness the fantastic to craft their own road to freedom. A journey across Guyana, London, and the United States, it is a meditation on black womanhood, queerness, the legacy of colonization, and pleasure. These poems craft a creation story fat with love, queerness, mermaids, and blackness.
68 pages, Paperback
Published March 26, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 12, 2022
I was given the privilege of reading Saida’s first full length collection this past month. Nothing prepared me for the emotional journey she took me on with her words. I’ve read it from start to finish a few times and each time gave me goosebumps. Her creativity in telling her own version of Guyana’s myths is inspiring as well as entertaining. Combine this with her words about iconic figures like Recy Taylor and an ekphrastic poem about a nude Black woman, and I think you have a raw and heartfelt work of art on your hands.
This poet is one to look out for.
5/5 stars
This poet is one to look out for.
5/5 stars
December 20, 2021
ARC given by Edelweiss+ for Honest Review
This was a hard book to get through, in a good way. The poems were deep and raw and beautifully written in a way that captures the reader, but makes them take the time to really absorb the ideas. Hard topics such as abuse, rape, death, and systemic racism can be hard to read about but they are important discussions to have. I've always found that poetry has a power to bridge harsh gaps when it comes to hard conversations and this is incredible proof.
While all the poems were wonderful, there were a few points at which I got emotional whiplash while reading. There is connection interwoven throughout, but there were spots in which reading a poem about masturbation after a poem about a girl shot in the head was a bit of a halt in my personal enjoyment.
My favorite poems are: "what I am afraid of", "moongazer", and "who we are human to."
Overall, this collection is gorgeous, beautiful, and transcendent. This is an amazing title to add to any poetry collection wanting to expand and diversify!
This was a hard book to get through, in a good way. The poems were deep and raw and beautifully written in a way that captures the reader, but makes them take the time to really absorb the ideas. Hard topics such as abuse, rape, death, and systemic racism can be hard to read about but they are important discussions to have. I've always found that poetry has a power to bridge harsh gaps when it comes to hard conversations and this is incredible proof.
While all the poems were wonderful, there were a few points at which I got emotional whiplash while reading. There is connection interwoven throughout, but there were spots in which reading a poem about masturbation after a poem about a girl shot in the head was a bit of a halt in my personal enjoyment.
My favorite poems are: "what I am afraid of", "moongazer", and "who we are human to."
Overall, this collection is gorgeous, beautiful, and transcendent. This is an amazing title to add to any poetry collection wanting to expand and diversify!
November 9, 2025
A collection of poems about identity, heritage, violence against Black people, survival, queerness, and hope.
from where does the story start?: "it starts with a riot of stubborn love / more drunk than the pastor at my baptism, with one lie, / then another, then another, until the whole world is born / and we wait, a revolt of black girls."
from what I am afraid of: "consider my father—illiterate in fidelity— / the brilliant long vine of women he courted. // I met one mistress at 8, beautiful, thick, insolent, saw / my father shaken, breath light, lungs corseted by the ache. // he nursed a long drunken arc of desire in their arms. / my mother, his wife, frozen in an empty bed. // blocked calls unanswered. / pleasure she did not beget."
from Bresha Meadows Speaks on Divinity: "god is a black girl / who once had to kill her own father. / say the social workers listened with kind / white eyes as she wept, her bare skin / a constellation of ripening bruises."
from where does the story start?: "it starts with a riot of stubborn love / more drunk than the pastor at my baptism, with one lie, / then another, then another, until the whole world is born / and we wait, a revolt of black girls."
from what I am afraid of: "consider my father—illiterate in fidelity— / the brilliant long vine of women he courted. // I met one mistress at 8, beautiful, thick, insolent, saw / my father shaken, breath light, lungs corseted by the ache. // he nursed a long drunken arc of desire in their arms. / my mother, his wife, frozen in an empty bed. // blocked calls unanswered. / pleasure she did not beget."
from Bresha Meadows Speaks on Divinity: "god is a black girl / who once had to kill her own father. / say the social workers listened with kind / white eyes as she wept, her bare skin / a constellation of ripening bruises."
December 21, 2024
"2 fat black women are making love -- and they touch
each other like they can hold it. honeyed, profane, bawdy --
like patriots, like their bodies have never been folded
into freezers, screamed at on streets, coaxed, or threatened
sweet, like they have names, like we will know them."
These poems understand that canefields don't lie. As they move from the Caribbean to the diaspora, back and forth, whispers and clamourings of love, brutality, sex, livity, I go where they lead: letting the dead in, turning up every lamp in the house to commune with the Black woman gods at work in every verse and each line.
each other like they can hold it. honeyed, profane, bawdy --
like patriots, like their bodies have never been folded
into freezers, screamed at on streets, coaxed, or threatened
sweet, like they have names, like we will know them."
These poems understand that canefields don't lie. As they move from the Caribbean to the diaspora, back and forth, whispers and clamourings of love, brutality, sex, livity, I go where they lead: letting the dead in, turning up every lamp in the house to commune with the Black woman gods at work in every verse and each line.
June 28, 2022
staggeringly painful and beautiful. i love how these poems combine family, personal, and cultural history and folklore.
September 14, 2024
I feel like I might not have been the target audience for this book.
I was, for the most part, entirely unmoved and didn't quite get it.
I was, for the most part, entirely unmoved and didn't quite get it.
March 1, 2023
Such an important, beautiful book.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews