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Godshots Wanted: Apply Within
I planted a FOR SALE sign at the back of my throat. But what it really advertises is how the corner of my mouth and my arteries like to give away my secrets for free. Found within the pages of this book is a fenestration of how a woman is dealing with the collapse of their world. The poet shows you such a harsh reality of being until it rips you to your marrow. "This book is the most perfect collection of American poetry in over a generation, an instant classic, and something that should be in everyone's poetry collection." - Adam Shove
Godshots Wanted: Apply Within is the first full-length title from Emily Perkovich. In this collection she addresses and ties together a multitude of themes and triggers, most notably, domestic and sexual abuse, suicidal ideation, self-harm, addiction, eating disorders, death and grief, and mental health disorders and diagnosis.
Godshots Wanted: Apply Within is the first full-length title from Emily Perkovich. In this collection she addresses and ties together a multitude of themes and triggers, most notably, domestic and sexual abuse, suicidal ideation, self-harm, addiction, eating disorders, death and grief, and mental health disorders and diagnosis.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
Published September 16, 2021
48 people want to read
About the author
Emily Perkovich
43 books166 followersEmily Perkovich (she/her) is from the Chicago-land area. She is the Editor in Chief of Querencia Press, a poetry reader with Split Lip Mag, and on the Women in Leadership Advisory Board with Valparaiso University. Her work strives to erase the stigma surrounding trauma victims and their responses. She is a Pushcart & a Best of the Net nominee, a SAFTA scholarship recipient, and is previously published with Horror Sleaze Trash, Harness Magazine, Rogue Agent, Coffin Bell Journal, and Awakenings among others. Em is Otomí and learning ways to reconnect with her kin. You can find her on IG @undermeyou or Twitter @emily_perkovich or visit her website.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 28, 2022
The writer is fearless in her exploration of intense topics. Reminds me of Sylvia Plath.
March 29, 2024
"The life jacket of mental health is not one size fits all, and quite a few of us have slipped through its restraints." -from 'A Guide On Saving Me' pg. 88
The hollow hunger and salivating summertime sadness in my bones devoured each poem in this collection with such gratitude. Emily is a starry and stinging alchemist that connects so effortlessly and leaves no sullen soul-bit unchurned. One can tell by the introduction that she cares about her readers and is hyper-aware of how this kind of material can sometimes be so triggering, transforming, and healing, and that there's always a scary fine line threatening us from between the stages of our shadow work and integration. Transmutation is a fine art that requires us to burn and this comes in hot in Emily's 'It's a Simulation' with the line "Am I fucking art yet?"
This was my introduction into her work and I'll never forget how powerful it was. Each piece, for me, felt very in-the-moment, which plugged me right into her world. The ones that are etched into my snail heart are 'This is Performance-Art', 'In The Dirt', 'Whir', 'Echo (echo)', 'Volcanology', 'Who Ate Who', 'Fretful Minds', and of course, the iconic 'If One Of Them Is Dead'. This a an absolute must-read.
The hollow hunger and salivating summertime sadness in my bones devoured each poem in this collection with such gratitude. Emily is a starry and stinging alchemist that connects so effortlessly and leaves no sullen soul-bit unchurned. One can tell by the introduction that she cares about her readers and is hyper-aware of how this kind of material can sometimes be so triggering, transforming, and healing, and that there's always a scary fine line threatening us from between the stages of our shadow work and integration. Transmutation is a fine art that requires us to burn and this comes in hot in Emily's 'It's a Simulation' with the line "Am I fucking art yet?"
This was my introduction into her work and I'll never forget how powerful it was. Each piece, for me, felt very in-the-moment, which plugged me right into her world. The ones that are etched into my snail heart are 'This is Performance-Art', 'In The Dirt', 'Whir', 'Echo (echo)', 'Volcanology', 'Who Ate Who', 'Fretful Minds', and of course, the iconic 'If One Of Them Is Dead'. This a an absolute must-read.
March 11, 2024
i made a destiel edit using part of one of the poems so. do with that what you will. <- not an accurate representation of this poetry book
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April 24, 2024This was a very interesting read, in no small part because Perkovich's approach to Mad writing seems at first the complete opposite of mine, but upon further investigation, is more of a corollary. Perkovich claims with certainty and confidence –– even when that confidence is in her own vulnerability –– the maligned subgenre of confessional poetry, and doubles down on the very elements of her personal experience that would typically remove her from conversations about her own experience: explicit and implicit references to borderline and anorexia (both with genealogies heavily linked to "hysteria" diagnoses of old –– as well as an effective, unique balance of representation and opacity when it came to domestic/familial violence and poverty.
I think what I'm getting at here is that while the emotional experience of this book is intense, forward, and utterly uncompromising, I had misread it on my first round by understanding it only as a direct text. Part of the process is reclaiming confessionality is refusing to give the medico-psychiatric industry what it wants: confession that demands penitence, recovery, change. Perkovich elides that demand at every turn, "ruminating" without clear set of goals, "recovery" or otherwise. This is a poetics of public feeling not in search of change, per se, or even catharsis. It's a simultaneous making of art and refusal, in the act of creation, to be art "object" as Madwoman.
In truth, stylistically, these poems were not for me. My language preferences for reading and writing tend toward the semantically opaque. But these poems were also not *for me,* despite my sharing more than a few of the experiences mentioned therein. Crucially, they were not "for" (in the sense of "saving" or "giving voice to") psychiatrically disabled/Mad people either. What I loved about this collection was the challenge it posed, one partly indicated in Perkovich's introductory note: what does it mean to write explicit, confessional poetry that refuses penitence, surrounded by collective anxieties about the supposed "romanticization" of "mental illness"? I don't have a concrete answer (other than just continuing to read and publish complicated stuff) but I think that Perkovich's work is a great entrypoint for further considering these questions.
I think what I'm getting at here is that while the emotional experience of this book is intense, forward, and utterly uncompromising, I had misread it on my first round by understanding it only as a direct text. Part of the process is reclaiming confessionality is refusing to give the medico-psychiatric industry what it wants: confession that demands penitence, recovery, change. Perkovich elides that demand at every turn, "ruminating" without clear set of goals, "recovery" or otherwise. This is a poetics of public feeling not in search of change, per se, or even catharsis. It's a simultaneous making of art and refusal, in the act of creation, to be art "object" as Madwoman.
In truth, stylistically, these poems were not for me. My language preferences for reading and writing tend toward the semantically opaque. But these poems were also not *for me,* despite my sharing more than a few of the experiences mentioned therein. Crucially, they were not "for" (in the sense of "saving" or "giving voice to") psychiatrically disabled/Mad people either. What I loved about this collection was the challenge it posed, one partly indicated in Perkovich's introductory note: what does it mean to write explicit, confessional poetry that refuses penitence, surrounded by collective anxieties about the supposed "romanticization" of "mental illness"? I don't have a concrete answer (other than just continuing to read and publish complicated stuff) but I think that Perkovich's work is a great entrypoint for further considering these questions.
January 5, 2023
Prose served RARE. bloody, raw, intense.
October 3, 2021
Emily Perkovich writes from places many of us shroud in metaphors and her poetic voice drips with experience. Quite often, her work moves beyond the visceral; it is more than raw truth and honesty, Godshots Wanted is lived experience transformed expertly for the page.
"I was barefoot in the hallway"
From the first two pieces onwards, you are a witness. Perkovich's poetry and prose reanimate the past — not to re-traumatise but to recognise the fickle yet unshakeable nature of trauma: the hold it keeps, even in recovery.
The title permeates the collection; godshots are exactly what Perkovich is looking for — godshots are what so many of us crave. But, Perkovich's documentation, within this collection, of assault, abuse, addiction and illness is a stark reminder that the things which happen to us and around us, never leave. We just try to change.
"I know this from every angle. It catches light there, hides it here.
I am these shadows."
Perkovich's style is the stigma challenging work we need, because there is little justice to be found in survival; there is little peace, even in the catharsis of writing and/or reading a collection like Godshots Wanted. Perkovich gives voice to pain, to ache, to darkness, to ideation, and to fear. There is no romanticisation of the hope one will eventually find. It is truth and it is a recovery unfinished. It is a gripping, graphic and moving read. It is broken glass refracting sunlight across a cluttered room.
Godshots Wanted is a feat of brilliance. For the way Perkovich's talent resounds off every page in her structural choices, in the echoes of Gothic literature, in the streams of consciousness, and in the superb paralleling of Macbeth's 'Tomorrow' speech. And for the way it is a collection which will reassure anyone still reliving trauma that they are seen and they are heard.
Perkovich is the voice too many would label as unlikely, when in fact, she is the writer and artist we truly need. Godshots Wanted is unafraid even when fear, blood and trauma, settled within the speaker long ago.
"And what I mean to say is that not everyone has wounds that are easily healed, and I need you to be OK if sometimes I bleed on the carpet."
Godshots Wanted is the honesty we deserve, showcasing the phenomenal talent of Emily Perkovich, and I implore you to read it and experience it, while heeding Perkovich's opening foreword and trigger warning.
"I was barefoot in the hallway"
From the first two pieces onwards, you are a witness. Perkovich's poetry and prose reanimate the past — not to re-traumatise but to recognise the fickle yet unshakeable nature of trauma: the hold it keeps, even in recovery.
The title permeates the collection; godshots are exactly what Perkovich is looking for — godshots are what so many of us crave. But, Perkovich's documentation, within this collection, of assault, abuse, addiction and illness is a stark reminder that the things which happen to us and around us, never leave. We just try to change.
"I know this from every angle. It catches light there, hides it here.
I am these shadows."
Perkovich's style is the stigma challenging work we need, because there is little justice to be found in survival; there is little peace, even in the catharsis of writing and/or reading a collection like Godshots Wanted. Perkovich gives voice to pain, to ache, to darkness, to ideation, and to fear. There is no romanticisation of the hope one will eventually find. It is truth and it is a recovery unfinished. It is a gripping, graphic and moving read. It is broken glass refracting sunlight across a cluttered room.
Godshots Wanted is a feat of brilliance. For the way Perkovich's talent resounds off every page in her structural choices, in the echoes of Gothic literature, in the streams of consciousness, and in the superb paralleling of Macbeth's 'Tomorrow' speech. And for the way it is a collection which will reassure anyone still reliving trauma that they are seen and they are heard.
Perkovich is the voice too many would label as unlikely, when in fact, she is the writer and artist we truly need. Godshots Wanted is unafraid even when fear, blood and trauma, settled within the speaker long ago.
"And what I mean to say is that not everyone has wounds that are easily healed, and I need you to be OK if sometimes I bleed on the carpet."
Godshots Wanted is the honesty we deserve, showcasing the phenomenal talent of Emily Perkovich, and I implore you to read it and experience it, while heeding Perkovich's opening foreword and trigger warning.
September 17, 2021
Found within the pages of this book is a fenestration of how a woman is dealing with the collapsing of their world. From the open letter of Please Take Your Ghost From My Son, to the moment of hesitation in Weeds. While both In The Dirt and Accident Forgiveness will rip you to your marrow. Not since Plath or Bukowski has a poet been able to show you such a harsh reality of being.I guess what I’m trying to say is, this book is the most perfect collection of American poetry in over a generation, an instant classic, and something that should be in every poetry collection.
September 28, 2021
I have been throughly impressed with her dictation, after watching her on IG it's easy to see there is a character all her own written into this book. I'll be reading it over a few times without a doubt.
July 11, 2022
I know that I have ever found any other writer of any type that has such a unique way of using words in unexpected but EXPRESSIVE and EFFECTIVE ways to evoke emotions that you feel so explosively and completely. Every one of her books is a must have. You won't find another writer like her anywhere.
May 30, 2022
I did apply. My soul was not wanted.
October 3, 2021
Emily Perkovich is one of the most impressive writers of our modern day. Her work is consistently raw, vulnerable, and filled with intensity. There is a clear survivor that haunts the pages of her work. Everything she does is absolutely exquisite. A must read and a must have for anyone who craves modern poetry.
September 16, 2021
This is obviously a biased review. <3
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews