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Weirdo
How does one live through trauma and emerge applauding all the good that came from it? In her debut poetry collection, Julia Gaskill strives to answer this question. WEIRDO is a praise of girlhood through the lens of grief. This book delves into the death of a mother, the loss of religion alongside the discovery of one's queerness, and the friends who adore you for all your stubborn eccentricities. Simultaneously a love letter and a eulogy to one's childhood, weirdo walks a tightrope through a muddled youth to find the people who better you, the memories worth holding onto, and the person who came out the other side despite everything.
- GenresPoetry
94 pages, Paperback
Published October 25, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 12, 2022
This book of poetry a journey through grief and girlhood that is tender and heartbreaking. This work is sweet to the reader but does not hold back in its honesty.
December 12, 2022
One thing I love about Weirdo is that the book is definitely one thing. That’s just something that’s rare and hard to do in a poetry collection. What really came through as clicking into place was this need for a fantasy world, a need for an idyllic past/youth world, and this collision between that sort of childlike innocence with the harsh realities of life and death and growing up into oneself. The collection coheres around that inevitable collision, especially in the pieces Omen and Stay Tuned for Danger, which are some of my favorites.
The author did such a stunning job exploring what it means to grow into womanhood while also coping with the loss of her mother. As a reader there’s this very clear and direct connection between the shit we go through in life and the things we try do to transcend that pain. And those things are rendered beautifully in this book as relatable and tangible, whether it's the escape into fantasy, movies, friendships, or simply just being....weird.
There is a consistent clarity or vision or voice that’s super inspiring in the book. Formally, as Weirdo progresses there’s this really strong variety of formatting choices, some super bold, and somehow none of them are annoying. The author's choices felt intentional, clear and easy on the eyes.
I really get the sense that there’s lots of people out there who will really need this book. Above all, the reason I really love Weirdo is it's sense of clarity and one-thing-ness. It makes me reflect on all the ways over the course of my life I’ve wanted to transcend the circumstances of my individual pain, and all the funny ways in retrospect that made and makes me a Weirdo. Luckily, there are others out there! If you're one (you probably are) read this book!
The author did such a stunning job exploring what it means to grow into womanhood while also coping with the loss of her mother. As a reader there’s this very clear and direct connection between the shit we go through in life and the things we try do to transcend that pain. And those things are rendered beautifully in this book as relatable and tangible, whether it's the escape into fantasy, movies, friendships, or simply just being....weird.
There is a consistent clarity or vision or voice that’s super inspiring in the book. Formally, as Weirdo progresses there’s this really strong variety of formatting choices, some super bold, and somehow none of them are annoying. The author's choices felt intentional, clear and easy on the eyes.
I really get the sense that there’s lots of people out there who will really need this book. Above all, the reason I really love Weirdo is it's sense of clarity and one-thing-ness. It makes me reflect on all the ways over the course of my life I’ve wanted to transcend the circumstances of my individual pain, and all the funny ways in retrospect that made and makes me a Weirdo. Luckily, there are others out there! If you're one (you probably are) read this book!
December 12, 2022
Reading this book was like stepping back in time - to anyone who’s been a young girl on the outside of what is considered “normal” in adolescence, so many of Julia’s poems will feel so familiar. Her voice is crystal clear, her imagery is striking, and the way she weaves both joy and grief is thought-provoking and heartbreaking. For the horse girls, the weirdos, (speaking as a former “anime girl” myself back in middle school) and those who remember the joy it was to find others who shared the same passions without judgement, and what it means to have that sort of support and family (or lack thereof) when the worst comes knocking. I wish I could have read this book as a young girl. I want to send it my sisters. I want to keep it for my daughter should I ever have one, so when she grows up to be a weirdo, I can show it to her and tell her, “see? you are not alone.”
December 12, 2022
I feel like I could write these poems. No really. How do I go about getting a publishing deal?
December 12, 2022
Beautiful and moving. A window into a beautiful soul. I've seen the author perform live and she's fantastic. I'm so happy she finally has a collection in print.
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December 12, 2022Beautiful moving poetry
December 12, 2022
A lovely and strange look into the mind of an equally strange and lovely human. So thankful for Julia sharing her talent and soul
December 13, 2022
**Note: the author has been soliciting friends and strangers to merely give this book a 5star ratings/reviews so it has a better rating and not based on the quality of work. Those some people are attempting to take me to task by commenting on many of my other reviews and trolling them**
I stumbled across this book on instagram because I follow a bunch of small indie publishers as well as pages that promote them (along with unpublished writers). Anytime I get more than one poetry book I try to include a slam poet because there are some real treasures in them. However, this was not one of them. It was a disappointing collection, to be honest. I couldn’t see what the blurb from Hanif Abdurraqib (a very good writer) was talking about, that was part of why I got the book, actually. I’m glad I got it and read through it, but it kept screaming “high school diary” to me poem after poem. I’ll probably donate or gift this to a lending library when I come across one.
I can tell that these poems are very meaningful and hold a lot of weight with the author, but they ultimately fall pretty flat and lack a sense of cohesion, insight and depth. “Normie” would be a much better title than “Weirdo”.
The poems range from simply feeling incomplete and unedited (this seems to be a trend with slam poetry books?) to seeming unrefined and feeling like they’re a collection of poems written from poetry workshop prompts or your local poetry slam, which I suspect many of these probably were upon a little more searching about the author. I thought maybe there would be something I was missing so I tried to find live readings and those also lacked depth, to me. The bad kind of performance showy. The author is clearly is reproducing the same standard-cut slam poetry style of performance and writing. I ran up a rally on the inside back cover of all the trite cliches and turns of phrase that I found in Rudy Francisco, Andrea Gibson, Clementine Von Radics, and co. No honestly, there’s little variation on the “classic” bits all these and others have in their works.
Even with “bad” poetry I can still find, or see/feel, good aspects to it. Even if a poem isn’t necessarily well-written or novel it can still put down something of a profound or deep insight. So many of the “this is supposed to be deep” lines are in fact very shallow and only show the lengths to which this writing is suffering from a lack of deeper introspection and compassionate/empathetic negotiation with life.
Below are some excerpts from the pieces in the collection. They’re all what I expect from an _entitled_ english or poetry 101 student. A collection of open mic musics and desperate scribbling put to paper:
“I would never make such a selfish show of myself, and yet, for the life of me, I cannot quit this melody. I do not know why this song carries so much weight… the lyrics evoke something profound and transcendental.”
“Weird is the tethered title I have claimed/ with pride for decades, even when uttered/ by people longing to make me feel small.”
“How odd, to cherish/ someone wholehearted,/ love them to Jupiter/ and back, be each other's/ hothouse growth for/ a millennia, only to/ move on,/ as if vour friendship/ was nothing more than/ a phase, an embarrassment/ of nostalgia, the shadow/ of two dancing children/ disappearing with the sun.”
“you cannot let people see you grieving/ months after the after./ you are supposed to move on/ once the casket is in the ground.
a fallacy i wish someone has unknotted./ a forgotten memory that consumes me.“
“Nancy was the first to tell us anyone, anyone at all/ can be a monster, even with a credible alibi, even/ with an award-winning smile, even if he swears/ he does not know how the blood got on his hands.”
“We stood around the dead bird. Our bodies/ a crop circle; an imprint of what once had been./ A shoe nudge. A stick poke. A silent shuffle./ It was the first time any of us had come/ face-to-face with death./ An uninvited playmate. A rumor. A TV villain.”
I stumbled across this book on instagram because I follow a bunch of small indie publishers as well as pages that promote them (along with unpublished writers). Anytime I get more than one poetry book I try to include a slam poet because there are some real treasures in them. However, this was not one of them. It was a disappointing collection, to be honest. I couldn’t see what the blurb from Hanif Abdurraqib (a very good writer) was talking about, that was part of why I got the book, actually. I’m glad I got it and read through it, but it kept screaming “high school diary” to me poem after poem. I’ll probably donate or gift this to a lending library when I come across one.
I can tell that these poems are very meaningful and hold a lot of weight with the author, but they ultimately fall pretty flat and lack a sense of cohesion, insight and depth. “Normie” would be a much better title than “Weirdo”.
The poems range from simply feeling incomplete and unedited (this seems to be a trend with slam poetry books?) to seeming unrefined and feeling like they’re a collection of poems written from poetry workshop prompts or your local poetry slam, which I suspect many of these probably were upon a little more searching about the author. I thought maybe there would be something I was missing so I tried to find live readings and those also lacked depth, to me. The bad kind of performance showy. The author is clearly is reproducing the same standard-cut slam poetry style of performance and writing. I ran up a rally on the inside back cover of all the trite cliches and turns of phrase that I found in Rudy Francisco, Andrea Gibson, Clementine Von Radics, and co. No honestly, there’s little variation on the “classic” bits all these and others have in their works.
Even with “bad” poetry I can still find, or see/feel, good aspects to it. Even if a poem isn’t necessarily well-written or novel it can still put down something of a profound or deep insight. So many of the “this is supposed to be deep” lines are in fact very shallow and only show the lengths to which this writing is suffering from a lack of deeper introspection and compassionate/empathetic negotiation with life.
Below are some excerpts from the pieces in the collection. They’re all what I expect from an _entitled_ english or poetry 101 student. A collection of open mic musics and desperate scribbling put to paper:
“I would never make such a selfish show of myself, and yet, for the life of me, I cannot quit this melody. I do not know why this song carries so much weight… the lyrics evoke something profound and transcendental.”
“Weird is the tethered title I have claimed/ with pride for decades, even when uttered/ by people longing to make me feel small.”
“How odd, to cherish/ someone wholehearted,/ love them to Jupiter/ and back, be each other's/ hothouse growth for/ a millennia, only to/ move on,/ as if vour friendship/ was nothing more than/ a phase, an embarrassment/ of nostalgia, the shadow/ of two dancing children/ disappearing with the sun.”
“you cannot let people see you grieving/ months after the after./ you are supposed to move on/ once the casket is in the ground.
a fallacy i wish someone has unknotted./ a forgotten memory that consumes me.“
“Nancy was the first to tell us anyone, anyone at all/ can be a monster, even with a credible alibi, even/ with an award-winning smile, even if he swears/ he does not know how the blood got on his hands.”
“We stood around the dead bird. Our bodies/ a crop circle; an imprint of what once had been./ A shoe nudge. A stick poke. A silent shuffle./ It was the first time any of us had come/ face-to-face with death./ An uninvited playmate. A rumor. A TV villain.”
December 26, 2022
the thing which i appreciate most about this book is the confessional manner in which gaskill writes her poetry. i saw one reviewer mention that this book feels "high schooley," but i honestly feel like that's part of the point. many of the poems in this book are clear attempts to capture, and recapture, reverberations of nostalgia, joy, and pain that gaskill associates with this time period. to me, these poems often feel like polished versions of familiar writing prompts, neat repackagings of memories which are wholly intimate to one individual, yet touch on the kinds of experiences that i think all of us can relate to in our own ways. the book feels very 'slice-of-life' in that sense, and yet it also feels entirely particular to one individual's narrative and the experiences that come with it.
and is that not, ultimately, what makes one author's poetry stand out from another's ? does it not say something that some authors are so capable of translating their specific life experiences to the page ? is it not extraordinary when authors manage to create poems which are entirely their own, which, regardless of the language or the register or the form, readers are compelled to exclusively associate with that author alone ? among other things, what i see gaskill doing most in this collection is creating an ecology of her own experiences, mapping out a narrative of her adolescence which appears entirely self-referential, and as a consequence, entirely her own. that to me is what i love about this book.
and is that not, ultimately, what makes one author's poetry stand out from another's ? does it not say something that some authors are so capable of translating their specific life experiences to the page ? is it not extraordinary when authors manage to create poems which are entirely their own, which, regardless of the language or the register or the form, readers are compelled to exclusively associate with that author alone ? among other things, what i see gaskill doing most in this collection is creating an ecology of her own experiences, mapping out a narrative of her adolescence which appears entirely self-referential, and as a consequence, entirely her own. that to me is what i love about this book.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews