What do you think?
Rate this book
50 Things Kate Bush Taught Me About the Multiverse
This is a book of tragicomic gurlesque word-witchery inspired by the Kate Bush cosmos. Campily glamorous, darkly funny, obsessively ekphrastic, boozily baroque, psychedelically girly & musically ecstatic, 50 Things Kate Bush Taught Me About the Multiverse dazzles as Karyna McGlynn's third collection.
84 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 5, 2022
11 people are currently reading
452 people want to read
About the author
Karyna McGlynn
13 books79 followersKaryna McGlynn is the author of Hothouse (Sarabande Books 2017), I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl (Sarabande Books 2009), and several chapbooks. Her poems have recently appeared in The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Black Warrior Review, Ninth Letter, Georgia Review, Witness, and The Academy of American Poet’s Poem-A-Day. Karyna holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Michigan, and earned her PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston where she served as Managing Editor for Gulf Coast. Her honors include the Verlaine Prize, the Kathryn A. Morton Prize, the Hopwood Award, and the Diane Middlebrook Fellowship in Poetry at the University of Wisconsin. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Oberlin College, where she teaches poetry, translation, and humor writing. Find her online at www.karynamcglynn.com.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
May 28, 2022
The thing about subscription books is you wind up reading books like this that you would never pick up on your own. Yeah, you also get books you DON'T bother reading, or try to read until you can't in good conscience go on, but this one I did, and I'm here to say I didn't regret it, even though I'd never heard of Karyna McGlynn, and even though I didn't know who Kate Bush was, either (I looked her up -- she's a singer).
I guess the operative word is witty. Or snarky. Or girls know best, maybe. Humorous, too, with lots of good specific nouns and an Emily as-in-Dickinson habit of randomly capitalizing words to signal their importance (they hit you in the head with their tiaras).
There are four parts and McGlynn puts her best ruby slipper forward right out of the gate with the first section called "Walking the Witch" (lots of allusions to lyrics of the aforementioned stranger, Ms. Kate Bush). To give you an idea, here's one from the opening sequence:
The Girls I Grew Up With Were Hard
& inscrutable as mirrored cop glasses--
they reflected your fear right back at you.
They had shins like weapons & weren't afraid
to hurt you. They were gleaming, high-busted
& knew their way around a pool table.
They moved down the court of my adolescence:
Muscle & Hair & High-Five. They aced
precalculus & clattered down those awful halls
like the air of the high school was hugging them.
Their retainers glinted when they grinned
& when they laughed hard, you could sometimes
see the whole firmament of sparkly blue plastic.
They all took up Texas two-stepping--tan & top
heavy with God. They had cliques & Clinique
& intentions to study International Business.
Without intending to, their limbs sawed at the new
wood of me. I was soft & easily outdone.
I flung myself in the path of their collective
Jeep Cherokee & said my dad had stranded me.
They didn't stop--even though I smiled,
even though I said, Please. Even though
I'd baked them lemon cupcakes
& daubed Love's Baby Soft between my knees.
See how easy it goes down? Not exactly Robert Frost, but when's the last time you saw HIS ghost walking the ramparts in the guise of a living poet? So if you read it and forget it, you can at least say you had fun doing so.
I guess the operative word is witty. Or snarky. Or girls know best, maybe. Humorous, too, with lots of good specific nouns and an Emily as-in-Dickinson habit of randomly capitalizing words to signal their importance (they hit you in the head with their tiaras).
There are four parts and McGlynn puts her best ruby slipper forward right out of the gate with the first section called "Walking the Witch" (lots of allusions to lyrics of the aforementioned stranger, Ms. Kate Bush). To give you an idea, here's one from the opening sequence:
The Girls I Grew Up With Were Hard
& inscrutable as mirrored cop glasses--
they reflected your fear right back at you.
They had shins like weapons & weren't afraid
to hurt you. They were gleaming, high-busted
& knew their way around a pool table.
They moved down the court of my adolescence:
Muscle & Hair & High-Five. They aced
precalculus & clattered down those awful halls
like the air of the high school was hugging them.
Their retainers glinted when they grinned
& when they laughed hard, you could sometimes
see the whole firmament of sparkly blue plastic.
They all took up Texas two-stepping--tan & top
heavy with God. They had cliques & Clinique
& intentions to study International Business.
Without intending to, their limbs sawed at the new
wood of me. I was soft & easily outdone.
I flung myself in the path of their collective
Jeep Cherokee & said my dad had stranded me.
They didn't stop--even though I smiled,
even though I said, Please. Even though
I'd baked them lemon cupcakes
& daubed Love's Baby Soft between my knees.
See how easy it goes down? Not exactly Robert Frost, but when's the last time you saw HIS ghost walking the ramparts in the guise of a living poet? So if you read it and forget it, you can at least say you had fun doing so.
September 19, 2022
Read this while listening to Kate Bush. Pure magic. She is my God and this is my bible.
November 4, 2021
ARC given by Edelweiss+ for Honest Review
Pardon the language but this was FUCKING PHENOMENAL.
Angry, witty, feminist, and lush. McGlynn pulls no punches when it comes to the full-fontal fabulousness of these poems.
A line from "Witches Be Everywhere" stood out to me so vividly that I needed to quote it here:
"Always so good
at finding the smallest, shiniest things
& thrusting them triumphantly
into the light, on the other side
of asphyxiation - smiling despite the fact
that nobody actually asked you
to bring them back."
My favorite poems are: "If You Ask Peter Gabriel To Astral Project", "Application To Model For Helmut Newton", and "How To Stop Raping The Muse."
Pardon the language but this was FUCKING PHENOMENAL.
Angry, witty, feminist, and lush. McGlynn pulls no punches when it comes to the full-fontal fabulousness of these poems.
A line from "Witches Be Everywhere" stood out to me so vividly that I needed to quote it here:
"Always so good
at finding the smallest, shiniest things
& thrusting them triumphantly
into the light, on the other side
of asphyxiation - smiling despite the fact
that nobody actually asked you
to bring them back."
My favorite poems are: "If You Ask Peter Gabriel To Astral Project", "Application To Model For Helmut Newton", and "How To Stop Raping The Muse."
March 5, 2024
i was a little disappointed by this because the title was so sick but a lot of the poems just didn't land for me! i would read more by this writer though, maybe!
September 28, 2023
I couldn't stop reading. Now I want to read them again.
Especially "Golden Age Drinking," and "I Stand Outside This Woman's Work," and maybe everything else.
I had to go back to Kate Bush and listen again.
Everyone who loves Kate Bush should read this.
Everyone who doesn't love Kate Bush should also read this.
I guess, actually, everyone should read these poems.
As transporting as music.
And alive right on the nerve.
Especially "Golden Age Drinking," and "I Stand Outside This Woman's Work," and maybe everything else.
I had to go back to Kate Bush and listen again.
Everyone who loves Kate Bush should read this.
Everyone who doesn't love Kate Bush should also read this.
I guess, actually, everyone should read these poems.
As transporting as music.
And alive right on the nerve.
August 16, 2023
stunningly hilarious and smart and brutal and just all of the best parts of contemporary poetry wrapped up into one perfect collection with allll the homages to kate bush <3 i haven't gotten any poetry in in a while and this just hit everything i was looking for and now i need a physical copy because i need to underline the fuck out of it!
the girls i grew up with were hard
& inscrutable as mirrored cop glasses-
they reflected your fear right back at you.
They had shins like weapons & weren't afraid
to hurt you. They were gleaming, high-busted
& knew their way around a pool table.
They moved down the court of my adolescence:
Muscle & Hair & High-Five. They aced
precalculus & clattered down those awful halls
like the air of high school was hugging them.
Their retainers glinted when they grinned
& when they laughed hard, you could sometimes
see the whole firmament of sparkly blue plastic.
They all took up Texas two-stepping-tan & top
heavy with God. They had cliques & Clinique
& intentions to study International Business.
Without intending to, their limbs sawed at the new
wood of me. I was soft & easily outdone.
I flung myself in the path of their collective
Jeep Cherokee & said my dad had stranded me.
They didn't stop-even though I smiled,
even though I said, Please. Even though
I'd baked them lemon cupcakes
& daubed Love's Baby Soft between my knees.
i thought no one would ever love me
so I lay in my daybed at night
& fashioned myself a Future
Wife. Someone like the girl
up the street with the old tan
Volvo. The one with one foot
in volleyball & the other
in drama club. Maybe I hid
her pearls & a satin-trim
robe. Maybe I cut her
diploma into fleur-de-lis
& dipped them in the dark
chocolate of my chintzy
desires. I installed My Wife
in a woody, masculine den
& made her whippet-willed
& full of brandy. I stole her
hairspray & gave her a letter desk
instead & an actual inkwell.
I gave her a lockable, leather-
bound love. I imagined her parents
somewhere safe, warm & out
of the way. We summered in Monaco,
read nothing but Daphne du Maurier,
took our sun at the Top of the City.
She had a smile like a high-wire act
& a signature like a sigil. I never
stopped loving the way she slid
into day-old stockings like a snake
reassuming its shed. In truth?
Her name was Jill. She wore
athletic shorts & never spoke
to me. So I renamed her Miriam
de Havilland & had her
handle my correspondence.
We cohabitated fantastically.
I installed paintings throughout
our Morning Room: storm-
flecked seas, gold-framed
& foaming at the mouth!
golden age drinking
Our upstairs neighbor's apartment is leaking
"Moon River" again-it trickles
down the stairs & under our door.
It puts chopsticks in my chignon
& spritzes the place with Jean Patou.
The girl up there
has been crying
for three days straight.
She's pretty, pale & looks like
she's made of matchsticks, but
she heaves her Sadness around
the building like a Giant Toddler
on a short leash.
She never seems to sleep.
When she checks her mailbox
we can see she's a cuttr.
This is the late '90s though,
so what's happening
feels more like an Aesthetic
than a Situation.
In the Mansion of Many Apartments,
we keep facing a choice:
whether to leave certainty
for something else
which might be messy,
awkward, or mean.
When I try to look through
the prism of my early twenties
all I really see is gin, scorn
& a marble chess set. My stupid
Scorpio earrings. I took baths,
felt wrath. I didn't even have
a real job, just a Lover who fed me
slivers of cheese & apple off a knife
in a silver hammock we scored
for free on Craigslist. Did I think I was
some kind of French Duke or what?
By day I did my vocal exercises & listened
to cassette tapes: etymological lectures, French
lessons, Robert Lowell intoning "nine-knot yawl"
& "I myself am hell; nobody's here-"
By night I blew long curls of lavender
smoke & Julie London tunes through
the cracks in our ceiling like I was
fumigating millennial centipedes.
Our upstairs neighbor?
The short answer is
I don't know what happened.
None of us did
a damn thing but drink & egg each
other on with increasingly melancholic music.
In hallways, I still see her
rhinestone spine flash & wriggle back
into the shadow of the fact:
we made a Whole Skit of her
but never even knocked.
[also: halloween in the anthropocene, we sing mozart's requiem in the back of the cruiser, on the dubious honor of being the prettiest, how to talk the manic away, i wake up in the underworld of my own dirty purse, and this was supposed to be an ode to aqua net.]
the girls i grew up with were hard
& inscrutable as mirrored cop glasses-
they reflected your fear right back at you.
They had shins like weapons & weren't afraid
to hurt you. They were gleaming, high-busted
& knew their way around a pool table.
They moved down the court of my adolescence:
Muscle & Hair & High-Five. They aced
precalculus & clattered down those awful halls
like the air of high school was hugging them.
Their retainers glinted when they grinned
& when they laughed hard, you could sometimes
see the whole firmament of sparkly blue plastic.
They all took up Texas two-stepping-tan & top
heavy with God. They had cliques & Clinique
& intentions to study International Business.
Without intending to, their limbs sawed at the new
wood of me. I was soft & easily outdone.
I flung myself in the path of their collective
Jeep Cherokee & said my dad had stranded me.
They didn't stop-even though I smiled,
even though I said, Please. Even though
I'd baked them lemon cupcakes
& daubed Love's Baby Soft between my knees.
i thought no one would ever love me
so I lay in my daybed at night
& fashioned myself a Future
Wife. Someone like the girl
up the street with the old tan
Volvo. The one with one foot
in volleyball & the other
in drama club. Maybe I hid
her pearls & a satin-trim
robe. Maybe I cut her
diploma into fleur-de-lis
& dipped them in the dark
chocolate of my chintzy
desires. I installed My Wife
in a woody, masculine den
& made her whippet-willed
& full of brandy. I stole her
hairspray & gave her a letter desk
instead & an actual inkwell.
I gave her a lockable, leather-
bound love. I imagined her parents
somewhere safe, warm & out
of the way. We summered in Monaco,
read nothing but Daphne du Maurier,
took our sun at the Top of the City.
She had a smile like a high-wire act
& a signature like a sigil. I never
stopped loving the way she slid
into day-old stockings like a snake
reassuming its shed. In truth?
Her name was Jill. She wore
athletic shorts & never spoke
to me. So I renamed her Miriam
de Havilland & had her
handle my correspondence.
We cohabitated fantastically.
I installed paintings throughout
our Morning Room: storm-
flecked seas, gold-framed
& foaming at the mouth!
golden age drinking
Our upstairs neighbor's apartment is leaking
"Moon River" again-it trickles
down the stairs & under our door.
It puts chopsticks in my chignon
& spritzes the place with Jean Patou.
The girl up there
has been crying
for three days straight.
She's pretty, pale & looks like
she's made of matchsticks, but
she heaves her Sadness around
the building like a Giant Toddler
on a short leash.
She never seems to sleep.
When she checks her mailbox
we can see she's a cuttr.
This is the late '90s though,
so what's happening
feels more like an Aesthetic
than a Situation.
In the Mansion of Many Apartments,
we keep facing a choice:
whether to leave certainty
for something else
which might be messy,
awkward, or mean.
When I try to look through
the prism of my early twenties
all I really see is gin, scorn
& a marble chess set. My stupid
Scorpio earrings. I took baths,
felt wrath. I didn't even have
a real job, just a Lover who fed me
slivers of cheese & apple off a knife
in a silver hammock we scored
for free on Craigslist. Did I think I was
some kind of French Duke or what?
By day I did my vocal exercises & listened
to cassette tapes: etymological lectures, French
lessons, Robert Lowell intoning "nine-knot yawl"
& "I myself am hell; nobody's here-"
By night I blew long curls of lavender
smoke & Julie London tunes through
the cracks in our ceiling like I was
fumigating millennial centipedes.
Our upstairs neighbor?
The short answer is
I don't know what happened.
None of us did
a damn thing but drink & egg each
other on with increasingly melancholic music.
In hallways, I still see her
rhinestone spine flash & wriggle back
into the shadow of the fact:
we made a Whole Skit of her
but never even knocked.
[also: halloween in the anthropocene, we sing mozart's requiem in the back of the cruiser, on the dubious honor of being the prettiest, how to talk the manic away, i wake up in the underworld of my own dirty purse, and this was supposed to be an ode to aqua net.]
November 29, 2023
Do you call the muses down when you speak?
If not, what Are you doing when you speak?
From the poem
You See, I'm All Grown Up Now
p26
Karyna McGlynn has grown since her last collection, or maybe I've just grown acclimatized to her style. Not that she's toned herself down; provocative is her signature. This themed grouping is more playful and less petulant.
my poems have teeth but no tenderness.
from the poem
How To stop Raping the Muse p55
I do love her titles, and the cover is gorgeous. The connection with Kate Bushes music though seemed tenuoius to me. KB was on daily rotation for a big part of my life and I know most of her music by heart. I was hoping to hear a full bursting soundtrack of associations but I had to go to YouTube for that.
When I started listening to KB it was a vynl record on a stereo. This was in the dark ages, before much music, before internet. I had never seen the videos and remixes, the weird productions.
I did keep listening, stopped watching, rather disenchanted by the hype.
KMcG seems to thrive on it.
If this collection is more gimmicky than evocative, I had some fun here, especially following some of her more obscure references. It will be interesting to see where she parachutes next.
some girl asked if I had seen the Marfa Lights
I stood up whiskily on my stool and said
"Bitch I am the Marfa Lights!"
from the poem
How To Talk the Manic Away in a West Texas Bar
If not, what Are you doing when you speak?
From the poem
You See, I'm All Grown Up Now
p26
Karyna McGlynn has grown since her last collection, or maybe I've just grown acclimatized to her style. Not that she's toned herself down; provocative is her signature. This themed grouping is more playful and less petulant.
my poems have teeth but no tenderness.
from the poem
How To stop Raping the Muse p55
I do love her titles, and the cover is gorgeous. The connection with Kate Bushes music though seemed tenuoius to me. KB was on daily rotation for a big part of my life and I know most of her music by heart. I was hoping to hear a full bursting soundtrack of associations but I had to go to YouTube for that.
When I started listening to KB it was a vynl record on a stereo. This was in the dark ages, before much music, before internet. I had never seen the videos and remixes, the weird productions.
I did keep listening, stopped watching, rather disenchanted by the hype.
KMcG seems to thrive on it.
If this collection is more gimmicky than evocative, I had some fun here, especially following some of her more obscure references. It will be interesting to see where she parachutes next.
some girl asked if I had seen the Marfa Lights
I stood up whiskily on my stool and said
"Bitch I am the Marfa Lights!"
from the poem
How To Talk the Manic Away in a West Texas Bar
June 26, 2024
Favorites- A Real Artist Makes Us Fall in Love with Ghosts, If You Ask Peter Gabriel to Astral Project, You Must Wake Up, How to Talk the Manic Away, Golden Age Drinking, and I Wake Up in the Underworld of My Own Dirty Purse.
August 1, 2022
A beautiful collection of poetry dedicated to and inspired by Kate Bush and other popular culture, that I really resonated with.
December 26, 2022
Not sure what all these raving reviews are seeing that I’m not. This reads like the worst kind of instagram self centered pseudo-feminism. Uninventive language and lots of whining.
January 1, 2023
I'll be honest- I didn't understand or connect to every poem, but it was still a fun read. The poem titles were my favourite part.
April 20, 2023
I’m not a child of the 90s but this collection made me feel like one
February 27, 2023
I bought this at Prologue on Independent book store day by looking at every title in stock on their shelves in the Poetry section that day. It was indeed the title that triggered the purchase, but the nuance of all of her references to Kate Bush and other music, literary, and pop culture references (some which I picked up, many which I only recognized after reading the notes for each poem) is impressive. I’m 100% in love with the poem “If You Ask Peter Gabriel to Astral Project” and many lines had me laughing and exclaiming throughout this collection. I also loved “50 Inciting Incidents” and plan to attempt an after poem inspired by it. One thing I love about this poet is her use of line breaks! Loving my return to reading more poetry!
July 13, 2022
very imaginative! several of the poems are really excellent. and then i read the notes in the back…kinda feels like it was written for me
April 11, 2023
lestat in the kate bush collection ??? fuck me bruv
October 27, 2024
I’ve read good poetry. This collection was okay at most
November 1, 2024
just fine
August 4, 2025
"What an awkward sort of sadness
to wait out in the hallway"
to wait out in the hallway"
December 30, 2024
Okay, this title, you all. It sucked me right into reading it and I am pretty damn glad I did.
I thought no one would ever love me
so I lay in my daybed at night
& fashioned myself a Future
Wife. Someone like the girl
up the street with the old tan
Volvo. The one with one foot
in volleyball & the other
in drama club. Maybe I hid
her pearls & a satin-trim
robe. Maybe I cut her
diploma into fleur-de-lis
& dipped them in the dark
chocolate of my chintzy
desires. I installed My Wife
in a woody, masculine den
& made her whippet-willed
& full of brandy. I stole her
hairspray & gave her a letter desk
instead & an actual inkwell.
I gave her a lockable, leather-
bound love. I imagined her parents
somewhere safe, warm & out
of the way. We summered in Monaco,
read nothing but Daphne du Maurier,
took our sun at the Top of the City.
She had a smile like a high-wire act
& a signature like a sigil. I never
stopped loving the way she slid
into day-old stockings like a snake
reassuming its shed. In truth?
Her name was Jill. She wore
athletic shorts & never spoke
to me. So I renamed her Miriam
de Havilland & had her
handle my correspondence.
We cohabitated fantastically.
I installed paintings throughout
our Morning Room: storm-
flecked seas, gold-framed
& foaming at the mouth!
The girls I grew up with were hard
& inscrutable as mirrored cop glasses--
they reflected your fear right back at you.
They had shins like weapons & weren't afraid
to hurt you. They were gleaming, high-busted
& knew their way around a pool table.
They moved down the court of my adolescence:
Muscle & Hair & High-Five. They aced
precalculus & clattered down those awful halls
like the air of the high school was hugging them.
Their retainers glinted when they grinned
& when they laughed hard, you could sometimes
see the whole firmament of sparkly blue plastic.
They all took up Texas two-stepping--tan & top
heavy with God. They had cliques & Clinique
& intentions to study International Business.
Without intending to, their limbs sawed at the new
wood of me. I was soft & easily outdone.
I flung myself in the path of their collective
Jeep Cherokee & said my dad had stranded me.
They didn't stop--even though I smiled,
even though I said, Please. Even though
I'd baked them lemon cupcakes
& daubed Love's Baby Soft between my knees.
I thought no one would ever love me
so I lay in my daybed at night
& fashioned myself a Future
Wife. Someone like the girl
up the street with the old tan
Volvo. The one with one foot
in volleyball & the other
in drama club. Maybe I hid
her pearls & a satin-trim
robe. Maybe I cut her
diploma into fleur-de-lis
& dipped them in the dark
chocolate of my chintzy
desires. I installed My Wife
in a woody, masculine den
& made her whippet-willed
& full of brandy. I stole her
hairspray & gave her a letter desk
instead & an actual inkwell.
I gave her a lockable, leather-
bound love. I imagined her parents
somewhere safe, warm & out
of the way. We summered in Monaco,
read nothing but Daphne du Maurier,
took our sun at the Top of the City.
She had a smile like a high-wire act
& a signature like a sigil. I never
stopped loving the way she slid
into day-old stockings like a snake
reassuming its shed. In truth?
Her name was Jill. She wore
athletic shorts & never spoke
to me. So I renamed her Miriam
de Havilland & had her
handle my correspondence.
We cohabitated fantastically.
I installed paintings throughout
our Morning Room: storm-
flecked seas, gold-framed
& foaming at the mouth!
The girls I grew up with were hard
& inscrutable as mirrored cop glasses--
they reflected your fear right back at you.
They had shins like weapons & weren't afraid
to hurt you. They were gleaming, high-busted
& knew their way around a pool table.
They moved down the court of my adolescence:
Muscle & Hair & High-Five. They aced
precalculus & clattered down those awful halls
like the air of the high school was hugging them.
Their retainers glinted when they grinned
& when they laughed hard, you could sometimes
see the whole firmament of sparkly blue plastic.
They all took up Texas two-stepping--tan & top
heavy with God. They had cliques & Clinique
& intentions to study International Business.
Without intending to, their limbs sawed at the new
wood of me. I was soft & easily outdone.
I flung myself in the path of their collective
Jeep Cherokee & said my dad had stranded me.
They didn't stop--even though I smiled,
even though I said, Please. Even though
I'd baked them lemon cupcakes
& daubed Love's Baby Soft between my knees.
January 12, 2025
“I took out my loudest shears & cut a hole in the landscape to make a space for the silence I was immediately accused of violating.”
July 9, 2022
Bought this book because the cover is amazing and because the title included “multiverse.” Was not disappointed.
The collection is subdivided into 4 parts, all titled after Kate Bush songs, which is incredibly neat. I didn’t find the notes in the back until I was mostly done with the collection and they aren’t necessary but were really cool.
The two sections I felt blown away by were A Coral Room and Pull Out the Pin.
My favorite poems in the other two sections were “you must wake up” (waking the witch) and “if you keep hitting those high notes” (wow).
Easier to talk about what DIDN’T make my “favorites to revisit” list in A Coral Room and Pull Out the Pin. I’ll pick 2 favorite favorites from each section begrudgingly, with the right to change my mind reserved at all times.
“On the Dubious Honor of Being Prettiest” and “It’s Sadder If You’re a Girl” (A Coral Room) and “I Wake Up in the Underworld of My Own Dirty Purse” and “How to Stop Raping the Muse.”
From “I Wake Up”:
In my dark bordello,
Bic lighters are barges
out in deep water. I taste
the tang of their flint sharpening,
receding, hear the cargo
sloshing, the boatswain’s call
at the far edge of my sanity.
Sometimes keys wash up to me—
all faint numbers & silver teeth.
I no longer know what they open.
From “How to Stop…”
The professor summoned me
to his office, said he needed
my poems to feel more pregnant—
that the forest of my poetry was impenetrable,
that I needed to leave a trail of milk & candy
if I wanted anyone to follow me into the woods.
I would follow McGlynn into the woods any day.
The collection is subdivided into 4 parts, all titled after Kate Bush songs, which is incredibly neat. I didn’t find the notes in the back until I was mostly done with the collection and they aren’t necessary but were really cool.
The two sections I felt blown away by were A Coral Room and Pull Out the Pin.
My favorite poems in the other two sections were “you must wake up” (waking the witch) and “if you keep hitting those high notes” (wow).
Easier to talk about what DIDN’T make my “favorites to revisit” list in A Coral Room and Pull Out the Pin. I’ll pick 2 favorite favorites from each section begrudgingly, with the right to change my mind reserved at all times.
“On the Dubious Honor of Being Prettiest” and “It’s Sadder If You’re a Girl” (A Coral Room) and “I Wake Up in the Underworld of My Own Dirty Purse” and “How to Stop Raping the Muse.”
From “I Wake Up”:
In my dark bordello,
Bic lighters are barges
out in deep water. I taste
the tang of their flint sharpening,
receding, hear the cargo
sloshing, the boatswain’s call
at the far edge of my sanity.
Sometimes keys wash up to me—
all faint numbers & silver teeth.
I no longer know what they open.
From “How to Stop…”
The professor summoned me
to his office, said he needed
my poems to feel more pregnant—
that the forest of my poetry was impenetrable,
that I needed to leave a trail of milk & candy
if I wanted anyone to follow me into the woods.
I would follow McGlynn into the woods any day.
July 4, 2023
Concept I love: media influencing your own creative output (author Karyna McGlynn pours love out for Kate Bush in nearly every poem here, as explained to great detail in the notes section of the thin, tall book).
Execution: I’m torn.
I think the problem with my fully “getting” this book is the poet often makes allusions to bits of life that I don’t understand. Not meaning to center myself here and expect that reading should cater to me.This could be due to my being young; legit existing in a different era than her. Yet McGlynn is so focused on her own life and realizing it through her poetic navel-gazing that it’s like she forgets other people are reading. That’s cool in one way, because she’s bearing her soul and I get to be a voyeur. But on the another hand, I feel like I should be waving my hands in her metaphorical, introspective face and shouting, “you know I’m listening to you too, right? And if you want your listener to fully listen and GET you, you gotta explain yourself?!”
And then other times my chest aches because she’s captured an experience exquisitely. The chest ache can be present for two clearly separate reasons: 1, it’s something written in a way that’s so raw my English major heart loves it, OR 2, it’s achingly real to me and I deeply relate.
So.
Mixed feelings here, to say the least.
I’ve finished this book, but my brain certainly isn’t done with it. Will put this on my shelf to gaze at until eventually get masochistic and pick it up again.
Execution: I’m torn.
I think the problem with my fully “getting” this book is the poet often makes allusions to bits of life that I don’t understand. Not meaning to center myself here and expect that reading should cater to me.This could be due to my being young; legit existing in a different era than her. Yet McGlynn is so focused on her own life and realizing it through her poetic navel-gazing that it’s like she forgets other people are reading. That’s cool in one way, because she’s bearing her soul and I get to be a voyeur. But on the another hand, I feel like I should be waving my hands in her metaphorical, introspective face and shouting, “you know I’m listening to you too, right? And if you want your listener to fully listen and GET you, you gotta explain yourself?!”
And then other times my chest aches because she’s captured an experience exquisitely. The chest ache can be present for two clearly separate reasons: 1, it’s something written in a way that’s so raw my English major heart loves it, OR 2, it’s achingly real to me and I deeply relate.
So.
Mixed feelings here, to say the least.
I’ve finished this book, but my brain certainly isn’t done with it. Will put this on my shelf to gaze at until eventually get masochistic and pick it up again.
April 21, 2023
I really enjoyed this one. I don't think it was life-changing poetry, but it gave me enough to chew on. Enough originality. Enough imagination. Enough clever Kate Bush references. Enough femininity. Enough mysticism.
My least favorite part (and not even to Karyna McGlynn's fault at all) is a review on the back cover from Leigh Stein that calls McGlynn a "Kate Bush girl in a Britney Spears world." How reductive! First off, what does it even mean to be a Britney Spears world/girl? In a world of lack of autonomy and familial abuse and mental health stigmatization and legal strife, to be used as a financial pawn? Is that what it means to be in a Britney Spears world? Or is it a cheap reduction of Britney's pain and struggle to mean, "I'm not like other girls, I don't like pink." ??? Maybe you can say that in the late 90s-early 2000s but my god in the year 2022 get a fucking grip! And by the way, I can tell Karyna LOVES pink from reading this. and probably Britney Spears too. So basically🖕Leigh Stein, but great job on the book Karyna sweetie, we love it.
My least favorite part (and not even to Karyna McGlynn's fault at all) is a review on the back cover from Leigh Stein that calls McGlynn a "Kate Bush girl in a Britney Spears world." How reductive! First off, what does it even mean to be a Britney Spears world/girl? In a world of lack of autonomy and familial abuse and mental health stigmatization and legal strife, to be used as a financial pawn? Is that what it means to be in a Britney Spears world? Or is it a cheap reduction of Britney's pain and struggle to mean, "I'm not like other girls, I don't like pink." ??? Maybe you can say that in the late 90s-early 2000s but my god in the year 2022 get a fucking grip! And by the way, I can tell Karyna LOVES pink from reading this. and probably Britney Spears too. So basically🖕Leigh Stein, but great job on the book Karyna sweetie, we love it.
February 12, 2023
I really loved every minute of this book. Like a great album where each song must be listened to in order, each poem read as part of the whole somehow.
I may be biased as I get the sense I have some common ground with the author… late gen x, a period of obsession with Victorian lace gloves and hankies, coming of age in the 90’s…so many of the images and references were cultural touch points for me.
Made me regret that I didn’t listen to more Kate Bush in my youth.
Also typography and graphics are done beautifully and add to the reading experience.
I may be biased as I get the sense I have some common ground with the author… late gen x, a period of obsession with Victorian lace gloves and hankies, coming of age in the 90’s…so many of the images and references were cultural touch points for me.
Made me regret that I didn’t listen to more Kate Bush in my youth.
Also typography and graphics are done beautifully and add to the reading experience.
December 16, 2024
I saw Karyna McGlynn at a poetry reading I accidentally wound up attending in Houston (shout out to the UH Poison Pen series at the best bar in Houston, Poison Girl). Usually, I flee from poetry readings I accidentally wind up at bc they can be a little cringe. But Karyna had me *riveted* to my seat, made me laugh and cry at the same time, and I became an instant fan 4 life. This is what poetry can be!! I want to read this book annually. And you should, too.
November 9, 2021
Wow, I can’t believe someone leaked my coven’s manifesto.
Ferocious. Smirking and self-aware. A scholarly and thoroughly academic appreciation of O Great Kate, and the kind of written intimacy that is all at once an arm around your shoulder, a razor at your neck, and a head dreaming on your stomach.
I would like to take this book out for a drink now that we’ve gotten to know each other.
Ferocious. Smirking and self-aware. A scholarly and thoroughly academic appreciation of O Great Kate, and the kind of written intimacy that is all at once an arm around your shoulder, a razor at your neck, and a head dreaming on your stomach.
I would like to take this book out for a drink now that we’ve gotten to know each other.
June 9, 2022
Picked this collection up on a whim because the fantastic title caught my eye, and I'm glad that I did. McGlynn's use of language is rich and vivid - I found myself with the urge to read many of these poems out loud. I went back to some of these three or four times, and I don't yet feel done with them.
July 24, 2022
Explosive!! 5 stars for the title alone.
Overall, thoroughly contemplative thoughts about femininity and the multiverse. Descriptions were beautiful.
“Strangers will stop asking you to prove you’re a woman.
Real women remember birthdays.
Real women have bosoms that feed whole villages.
Real women thrust their hips when angry
& make their lips both big & small.”
Overall, thoroughly contemplative thoughts about femininity and the multiverse. Descriptions were beautiful.
“Strangers will stop asking you to prove you’re a woman.
Real women remember birthdays.
Real women have bosoms that feed whole villages.
Real women thrust their hips when angry
& make their lips both big & small.”
May 21, 2022
This is a great collection. Many of McGlynn's references are based in '90s adolescent and teenage experiences. I'm a bit younger than her, but these still resonated with me. The poems are funny and can be devastating.
February 27, 2023
i enjoyed the kate bush inspo and the thematic imagery, but i wasn’t able to get into it much beyond that. the feminist stuff came off one-dimensional, second-wave vibes to me. still figuring out my taste/space in poetry though
Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews