Yearn

by Rage Hezekiah

Contour is a lie—a sensitive line. It grieves the separation between the body and the land. It asks the enduring question of illusive space: Are we indeed dissociable and, above all else, manageable? In a series of liberatory poems, Rage Hezekiah’s second collection, Yearn, speaks this boundary aloud by working up to its conscious edge. An anonymous voice agonizes over the invisible barriers to her own autonomy—“a bodily history of you do not/ belong”—through circular turns of youth and adulthood. Rather than a linear coming-of-age—an arch that reckons with a break—Yearn enfolds “everything unmine—/ the abundance I’ve been given.” Here, within visions of Californian bounty, the wound cuts as simply as a dissecting gaze, a schism as plain as “a plastic bar/ between us.” Liberty is just as easy. Like "my pulse, . . . the rivers toward/ their source," Yearn arrives again and again. This is an insistent cycle of resilience that blooms into adulthood all because, "still—/ I am this way: vocal, unafraid."

Genres: Poetry

65 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2022

Reviews

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got to see Rage speak at my college last night and I’ve fallen in love with her poetry. Her way with words is incredible and her work is incredibly moving. This is honestly one the best poetry collections I’ve ever read and I’m so blessed to have heard some poems from it read out loud.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I FUCKING LOVED THIS COLLECTION.

Listen, I have been reading and reviewing (even if mostly just for myself) poetry for decades now and I still don't feel like I can adequately describe or even understand why one poet over another just RESONATES with my soul. Why one collection I read and think "this is very good," and the next makes me want to do some all-caps screaming on the internet.

Around the beginning of the year I was thinking that I wanted/needed more unread poetry on my shelves, and I was going through some of my old poetry reviews because I know there are collections I have finished thinking I WANT TO READ EVERYTHING ELSE THIS POET WRITES EVER but then I am terrible at following up. Well, I read my review for Hezekiah's previous collection, Unslakable, where I said pretty much exactly that, so I investigated whether she had anything new out, and was delighted to discover and immediately bought this.

Can I say first, this book is really beautiful? Not just the cover image, which is lovely, but the cover is a textured matte paper, and the dimensions leave lots of white space on the page, which I like in a poetry collection.

Hezekiah knocked my socks off with the very first poem, "Consent," which contrasts an awkward, performative sex act with a boy in her teens, with an experience with a woman in her twenties founded on affirmative consent. For a collection entitled yearn, it is a smashing beginning, as Hezekiah explores the boundaries of desire and want, not just sexual, but for food, for sensation, for dissolution, for reconciliation, for pregnancy. Throughout there are mentions of therapists, meditation teachers, guides, urging Hezekiah to let go of rage, of wanting. These are poems that both own their desires and try to make peace with those unfulfilled.

These poems address queerness, Blackness, the generational legacy of a parenting style that attempted to beat children into submission. They find joy in the change of seasons, in sex, in the quiet ritual of tea.

I don't know what to tell you I just love her.