Embodied Vol. 1 #1: An Intersectional Feminist Comics Poetry Anthology

by Wendy Chin-Tanner (Editor), Ruth Awad, Rosebud Ben-Oni

Mystical, rooted, painful, joyous, and ecstatic; visions of the body, our genders, and our very identities from across the spectrum of contemporary poetry come together in this monumental intersectional feminist anthology where verse and comics unite in spectacular new ways. Beautifully illustrated and bracingly written, EMBODIED is a memorable collaboration between cis female, trans, and non-binary poets and comics artists showcasing the power of both forms in a stunningly unique keepsake volume that will be treasured for ages.

Genres: Poetry, Graphic Novels, Comics, LGBT, Anthologies, Queer, Graphic Novels Comics

198 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 5, 2021

About the author

Wendy Chin-Tanner is the author of the novel KING OF THE ARMADILLOS and the poetry collections TURN and ANYONE WILL TELL YOU. She is the editor of EMBODIED: An Intersectional Feminist Comics Poetry Anthology and cofounder of A Wave Blue World, an independent publishing company for graphic novels. Born and raised in New York City, she lives in the Hudson Valley with her family.

Reviews

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 2 out of 5]

The hearts are in the right place for this collection of poetry/illustration mashups, but the quality is lacking. It's a hard thing, combining poetry and graphic work, it can be a bit like playing two different pieces of music at the same time.

Pretty much the thing you shouldn't do, is literally illustrating what the poem describes, and most of the entries in this collection do exactly that. Only a few go for some form of contrast, which creates a thrilling tension.

I'm not sure what to think of the decision to print the poem as text after each illustrated version - on one hand, I appreciate seeing the poem on its own (sometimes doing their own visual things in typography), on the other hand, it seems to indicate a lack of confidence in the illustrated versions.

I was impressed by a lot of the poetry, there's some really beautiful work here. I feel the graphic parts are a bit too cliched, and mostly don't really add a lot.

(Picked up a copy through NetGalley)

[Althea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Embodied is a gorgeous poetry collection by poets of minority genders all about their bodies and their lived experiences therein. The use of graphic novel elements to make poetry more accessible was particularly interesting and the artwork was all so stunning. I didn't resonate with a lot of the poetry, not just because I am white and many of the poets are people of colour, but just because I am not very familiar with poetry and at times I feel that the graphic novel layout made it a tad bit more difficult to fully grasp the meaning of some of the poems. Overall, this was a gorgeous graphic novel that I would recommend to poetry lovers and graphic novel readers alike!

Thanks to A Wave Blue World and Netgalley for an eARC in return for an honest review!

[Dr. Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley for providing a free eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

3.5/5

I had such a hard time trying to even get this file open that I will never ask for a book or a Read now on netgalley if it's a protected PDF. I am not doing this ridiculous dance again.

This was a decent anthology, but idk I don't think I'm a poetry person. Which is totally fine, we all have our preferences. I really loved the artwork that accompanied each poem, though it was hard to read at times on my laptop. I blame the PDF file.

My favorite poem was Half Girl, Then Elegy. The artwork was incredible for this one. It involved galaxy colors and this like dream world. I absolutely loved this one. Honestly would read it again just for a chance to pour of this poem again.

Special mention goes to the poem "Capitalism Ruins Everything even Witch Craft" which was slightly disappointing in the message, but I loved the title.

[Kaa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a fascinating experience. I've never read illustrated poetry like this before, and my usual favorite way to experience poetry is by listening to it read aloud. But even though listening to poetry and seeing poems fully illustrated are very different sensory explorations, for me the use of art in this book successfully accomplished the same thing I seek in poetry read aloud: an added dimension to communicate meaning and emotion in the poetry. I did also appreciate having the text of the poem after the illustrated version - I like to read a poem multiple times anyway, and sometimes the text arrangement said something that wasn't expressed in the illustrated version.

I didn't understand every poem in the book - honestly, I am very new to poetry and never expect that I will understand every poem in a collection - but there is so much power and feeling to all of the poems and art. The study guide at the end helped to provide some additional context and illumination, as well. Some favorite pairings were Rubble Girl (poem by Jenn Givhan, art by Sara Wooley), Gender Studies (poem by Caroline Hagood, art by Stelladia), Half Girl, Then Elegy (poem by Omotara James, art by Ayşegül Sınav, color flats by Alexia Veldhuisen) and Drown (poem by Venus Thrash, art by Y Sanders).

I did wish that the ambiguity in the order of lines in Tempest (poem by Khaty Xiong, art by Morgan Beem) had been better captured in the illustrated version - I didn't feel that I'd really been able to grasp the poem until reading it from a few directions in the text version.

[Geoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really really wanted to enjoy this collection, since I love the message, I love comics, and I love the idea of getting more poetry out in the world and appreciated. But most of these poetry/comic fusions just didn't connect with me. The comics were usually pretty straightforward interpretations of the poems and didn't take many chances around inventive imagery and metaphoric interpretation. And I also had the odd experience where having the poetic lines broken up across comic panels made the poems feel disjointed and made it harder to read them flowingly and fluently and to think of them in totality. I liked the poems when I read them without the art, I liked the art, but they didn't work well together. Comics really are the fusion of art and words presented sequentially, and so a good comic needs to be more than just a illustrated lyrics; the words and visuals and their sequential arrangement all need to blend and complement each other. It just didn't feel like that happened here.

**Thanks to the artists, publisher, and NeGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gorgeous collection of illustrated poetry. Can't imagine how neat it would be to have a poem I wrote turned into a comic. Some good representation throughout, though I could have done without Maggie Smith's "Good Bones". Besides feeling out of place with the rest of the work, it's one of the most famous poems to come out in recent years - why give it yet another platform, when that space could have gone to a less visible or represented writer? Anyway, that's a small criticism, the antho overall is very cool. My only other nitpicky thing was that I would have switched the order of plain text poem and comic, making the plain text appear before the comic. Reason being that I felt a natural inclination to read the plain text before the comic....but maybe other readers would go at it differently.

[Anwen Hayward · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea of this anthology is such a good one that I'm really not sure why it hasn't been done before, although looking at some of the pitfalls of the execution, I can see why the challenge might have seemed daunting. Poetry and comic art are two very different mediums, and marrying the two up isn't the most obvious choice. Where it works, it really works, but where it doesn't - well, there are some poems here which work wonderfully as narrative graphic illustrations, but others - mostly the poems which are almost entirely based around imagery - which quite simply don't.

I loved the wealth of voices included in this book (although, in 2021, it's time we stopped proudly proclaiming our anthologies for their 'diversity' if there's no disabled voices in them - this was a real tangible lack in this anthology, especially given that it touted itself multiple times as being diverse) and the sheer variety of poetry and art styles. Obviously, by its nature, there were some artists and poets whose work I liked more than others, but that's par for the course with any anthology. I particularly loved the final poem, Birth, by Wendy Chin-Tanner, and also thought its artwork was probably the most complementary and least distracting of the book. I also really appreciated the study guide at the back and found that it gave me lots of things to think about, and it was really enlightening to re-read some of the poems with those questions in mind.

Unfortunately, for me, having the structure of the poems broken up to fit them into the panels of the artwork really ruined any chance of engaging with most of the poems themselves; I feel like the poems often suffered from being surrounded by the chaos of the art, rather than embellished or enhanced by it. I don't really think that the two mediums really work together with the style of poetry chosen here, alas. It might work with poetry in a more narrative style, but not these ones.

Still, it's a really excellent idea for an anthology, and I think it could be a great series of books. I'd definitely read more of them, but would hope that the choice of poems would be better suited to the project.

[Dev · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received an ARC copy of this book from NetGalley

actual rating: 2.5

Take this review with a grain of salt because I am definitely not a poetry person but I thought that this anthology had an interesting concept and wanted to try to expand my reading habits. I'm sure a lot of people will find a lot to like here but there was really nothing that I related to on a personal level at all, and I also ended up having to skip probably 5 or 6 poems because they were about pregnancy but that's more of a me problem.

The art was okay but I felt it was a little bit too literal most of the time and didn't really add any new level of understanding to the poems, which is what I was hoping for since I often have a lot of trouble deciphering what poems are actually trying to say. Again, I'm sure a lot of people will love this and I love the idea of it but I just couldn't get into it at all.

[sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

eARC received in exchange for an honest review

The concept of this anthology is brilliant, and it's definitely a big part of why I chose to give this a try. Poetry is so often viewed as an inaccessible art form, something only a select intellectual few can enjoy. Comics, on the other hand, have a mass appeal that engages readers across genres and interests. In this collection, we get a beautiful blend of feminist poems and illustrations that work together to create a very quick and enjoyable reading experience.

Each poem is displayed on a corresponding comic/artwork, which is followed by a plain text page where readers can read the poem by itself. This was a very helpful addition because sometimes it was hard to follow the lyrical line of the poem through the different pages and graphics. I struggled to decide what to pay attention to because both the art and the poetry called out to me, and so my attention was being pulled in many ways as I read through it.

The collection is transgressive, brave, and intersectional, featuring many different identities that are examples of both unique and community experiences. A very valuable and necessary read.

Some of my favourite poems:
"Good Bones" by Maggie Smith (this one is probably my favourite, so so good)
"Red Woman" by Kenzie Allen
"Gender Studies" by Caroline Hagwood
"Units & Increments" (excerpt) by Shira Dentz

how much of a fantasy do you have to be able to imagine coming true to still imagine it

(I mean c'mon!!)
"Capitalism Ruins Everything, Even Witchcraft" by Kendra DeColo

The girl abandoned in a sinking marshland will never be named in America; America is just another boy with bad intentions, another flooding plot of discovery drowning its ever lousier yellows. How many daughters have we paid to the ship? Dissolution: to witness my own water burial

(so fucking good)

OH and this also comes with a study guide that was so so helpful!

[Alise · Rating 5 out of 5]

The art and poetry was beautiful. Great variety in stories and style.

[Courtney Kruzan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Things I loved;
1) The whole concept of this anthology is something new to me, which I loved. It feels innovative.
2) The illustrations were absolutely breathtaking. I cannot stress enough how I loved ALL the illustrations and how beautiful they are.
3) I wish I knew about the "study guide" discussion questions for each poem in the back of the book, they ask some good and thought provoking questions that would have deepened the experience of the poems if I was thinking about them in real time as I was reading.
4) Having just the textual copy of the poems after the illustrated version was a great thing to do.

Things I didn't love;
1) The comic book format did not translate as smoothly for a lot of the poems as it did for some. The poems would read more blocky and disconnected. This was especially true for the more abstract poems. This is also why I enjoyed having the full just textual formats after the illustrated formats.

A Couple Poems that I particularly loved;
- "Speak-House"
- "Capitalism Ruins Everything, Even Witchcraft"
- "Dancing with Kiko on the Moon"

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mixed bag. Some wonderful art and powerful poetry, some mediocre art and some opaque, confusing poems. "Half-Girl Then Elegy" and "Speak-House" were two of my favorites for both art and poetry, although there are other good ones.

[Shayla Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 rating. Poetry is something I’m still learning to like but this collection was solid!

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley, Diamond Book Distributors and A Wave Blue World for an ARC of this anthology in exchange for a review. Opinions are my own.

This was a little bit of a mixed bag for me. 'Embodied' brands itself as a unique collection of intersectional feminist poetry-in-comics, which it is. The idea of combining poetry with graphic novels definitely intrigued me and I'm always here for content celebrating women. I do not regret reading it, but it didn't connect to me as I had thought it would, for various reasons.

But first, let's talk about what I loved about the book.

1. The art is exquisite and beautiful for every single piece. Even if the poem wasn't my cup of tea, I was still wowed by the art that went with it. The storytelling, the use of colour. Sometimes the comic added a layer to the poem that made complete sense but that I never would have realised just from reading the words. Sometimes the art clarified something, and sometimes it was just a wonderful illustration of the words.

2. Women! All women, all the time! I love it!

3. The poems that I connected with, I *connected* with. Poetry has a different impact than prose, it has this way of creating a narrative, an image, with few words that can slice so deeply. There are a few phrases that I will definitely remember, that I love. There are also a few poems that I love and whose author I will definitely look in to. To have that combined with such beautiful art, was amazing.

Sadly, there were also a few things that made it harder to read this anthology.

1. First and foremost, I found it hard to really connect with the poetry when it was fragmented and surrounded by the chaos of visual art. I would have preferred to have the poem first, and then the graphic art. That's also how I read it, I skipped ahead to the poem, and then went back to the start of the comics bit. I understand why the comic comes first, as that is part if the point of the book. But for me it was too hard to focus on the poems themselves, which meant it was also hard to connect the poem to the illustrations.

2. Some (about 2/3?) of the pieces I didn't connect with. No insult to the author meant, of course, just personal preference about poetry. Naturally, if the poem isn't your thing, the graphic novel of the poem has an even harder time to capture your interest. I will say, however, that there were a few times when I wasn't very keen on the poem but looking at the graphic novel made it make more sense. So there is that.

All in all, I loved the art on its own, but the combination with poetry wasn't an overwhelming success for me. Maybe it was the way it was presented, maybe it was the specific content, I'm unsure. Nevertheless, some of the poems hit me with their gut-punchingly beautiful stories and those more than make up for the others.

[2TReads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Never have I encountered poetry combined with visual representation. The images helped in heightening the reading experience and provided quite the unique consumption of and interaction with these two art forms that can sometimes be viewed as appealing to a certain kind of reader and never the two together.

Pairing visuals and words that evoke strong emotions should become a regular feature of poetry. The poems themselves were raw and lyrical, and features a mashup of poets and artists showing what power can be found in words and drawings.

The poems cover identity, existing in our bodies, the use and perception of our bodies, dreams, hopes, experiences, views, and frustrations. They engage and allow reflection on shared lived experiences and the art lines and colours used also form another tether to the words on the page.

The artists’ stylistic representations were varied, beautiful, bright colours with sharp lines and detailed features; whimsical and pastel tones; deep rich tones; dark charcoal lines, all working together to form a collective interpretation of these stories.

The inclusion of gender
identities across the spectrum coming together to create this anthology was transformative and hopefully will garner the attention to foster more works like this in the poetry canon.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting approach to poetry, mixing it with visual story telling. Although I have trouble reading poetry, because I don't get all the visual nuances, and messages that were only hinted at.

It helped to have the graphic images that helped explain what the words of the poem meant, or that the artist thought they meant.

In the back, is a study guide to give a little more food for thought.

For those who like poetry about the body, and the use of the body, this would probably be a good book.

I only got one story, about being hired in to academia based on your looks. All the rest were too obscure for me to understand, unfortunately.

The hope of this book is to encourage more reading of poetry. I wish the publisher and authors good luck with that.

Thanks to Edelweiss for making this book available for an honest review.

[Micahk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a weird book to rate because not only is it a poetry book, but it’s also a graphic novel. If this was only poetry I would give it a 3 but considering the BEAUTIFUL graphics I gave it a 4 star. Also something that bumped it up was the “study guide” at the end of the book for each poem, which I really really appreciated because it asks you a lot of thought provoking questions relating to each poem. Each poem in this book is written by a different woman, whether they are cis gendered or not. There’s so many different topics in womanhood that are talked about and I really appreciate that also. Almost every poem I could find a line AT THE LEAST that really hit me in some way, the only reason I wouldn’t give this a 4 star for the poems alone is because even tho I appreciate all the topics that are touched on, only half of the poems in this book are very memorable for me, and there’s a few poems that just really aren’t my favorite and I didn’t really enjoy or even remember after I turned the page to the next poem. All in all this book is beautiful to look at and read and you can tell there was so much love and work that went into these pieces whether that be the poetry itself or the graphic work!

[Hayley Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

EMBODIED: AN INTERSECTIONAL FEMINIST POETRY ANTHOLOGY quite brilliantly joins poetry from cis female, trans, and non-binary poets with sequential art to create a truly unique graphic novel. I found the poems moving, thoughtful, and, at times, emotionally challenging. The dichotomy of lush, beautiful language with brutal subjects (eg. sexual assault, war, miscarriage) was particularly devastating in the way that poetry often is. Most of the poems felt like a quiet attempt to move through trauma, processing the losses while recovering hope for the future.

I'm grateful to have read a collection like this with marginalized voices and experiences prioritized, and hope to see a second volume in the future.

[Hal · Rating 3 out of 5]

arc provided by the publisher via netgalley in exchange for an honest review

This was a stunning book! We get to see poems and graphic novel art that goes along with each of them.

I think this was a genius idea and it is something that a lot of people will want to pick up, it really adds an extra layer of feeling and depth to each poem! I appreciate the different messages that are brought forth in each piece. Some touched me a lot more than others but all of them were full of emotion.

I highly recommend this if you’re looking for some new poetry but maybe in a format that you don’t see quite as often!

3/5⭐️

[Elizabeth Mellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars! I’ve never read a combination of poetry and graphic novel, and as someone who loves graphic novels and tries to read more poetry (but isn’t always good at it), I found the mixture really interesting and helpful to me understanding the message of the poems. They definitely were an eclectic mix of stories, some very dark and others hopeful or light, all of them beautifully illustrated. Some I think still went a tad over my head, and I really enjoyed the inclusion of discussion questions at the end - I didn’t have the answers but it helped me to think differently about some of the poems, as I focused on them.

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

4/25/21
I'm gonna be honest.
I did not finish this book. I got about halfway through it, and don't feel like forcing myself through the rest. Plus, my copy of it expires today and I don't see myself finishing it in time, haha.

I wanted to give this book a chance because I'm trying really hard to get into more poetry. However, it just wasn't for me. There were a few poems and specific lines that really stood out to me and made the reading experience of what I read worth it! The art in this book is also absolutely GORGEOUS. Honestly, seeing the art made it worth the read!

Huge thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this!

[henri reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It's embarrassing to understand so little about the world while taking up all this space."

This collection of poems was gorgeously made and compiled and dealt with so many important, sometimes beautiful, and sometimes terrifying themes, characters and stories. My problem: I don't think I understood the depth and meaning of some of the poems as English isn't my first language. Which is, of course, on me and not the authors or illustrators. I'm sure anyone with a love for poetry and a native speaker, will enjoy this to the full extent.

(eARC provided by netgalley.)

[Bernadette · Rating 2 out of 5]

A unique blend of poetry and comic that explores the relationships between the body, gender, and identity written by a diverse range of authors. As is to be expected in an anthology, the poetry and art is as diverse as the artists, and for the most part the art work compliments the corresponding poem. Some of the poems are difficult to read in comic form, so it is nice that the poems appear in full at the end of each "chapter".

[Tabby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay so this is the first poetry book I have read outside of class and it was okay? Not great, not perfect but still enjoyable. I am still trying to find what kind of poetry I liked and I thought that I would like this one more than I actually did. The illustration/comic style was very pleasing to the eyes but I found that the flow of the poems felt a bit choppy because of that. The one poem that I really felt drawn to was Good Bones. That one was pretty good!

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn't sure what to expect from comics paired with poetic verse. For the vast majority of the poems, the images left me more confused since I couldn't place their connection to the verses I was reading. I would think I understood lines only to see the images creating an entirely different story. Could be the poetry is a style I'm not confident in interpreting or the uniqueness of being told in images what I'm supposed to see in poetry. Not sure, but I'm sad that I didn't like this anthology more given the subject matter and inclusivity among contributors.

[Frank Chillura (OhYouRead) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not a huge lover of poetry, but the cover and the fact that this is an anthology of feminists creating art that stands up to the patriarchy spoke to me and I knew I needed it. I obviously loved some more than others, but they were all incredible for different reasons.

Those that need this book will love it. Those that aren’t my people won’t. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve never thought about what it would be like to combine poetry and the comic form, but it works really well. Each illustrated poem had a different author and artist so it was an interesting blend of art. Something for everyone, representing all types of women.

[Elyse · Rating 5 out of 5]

NetGalley ARC.

Whoa whoa wow. I've never seen this before and it was amazing. Poetry mixed with beautiful artwork portraying that poetry. Fabulous!!!

[Callie · Rating 4 out of 5]

gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous

[Erika Sarutobi · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

More than half of these poems are the really far fetched ones that I will never understand from reading them.
RTC