Build Yourself a Boat

BreakBeat Poets

by Camonghne Felix

2019 National Book Award Longlist

“With Build Yourself a Boat, Camonghne Felix heralds a thrillingly new form of storytelling.” —Morgan Parker, author of Magical Negro

This is about what grows through the wreckage. This is an anthem of survival and a look at what might come after. A view of what floats and what, ultimately, sustains.

Build Yourself a Boat redefines the language of collective and individual trauma through lyric and memory.

Genres: Poetry, Mental Health, LGBT, Nonfiction, Race, Queer, African American

72 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 23, 2019

About the author

Camonghne Felix is a poet, political strategist, media junkie, and cultural worker. She received an MA in arts politics from NYU, an MFA from Bard College, and has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo, and Poets House. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she is the author of the chapbook Yolk and was listed by Black Youth Project as a “Black Girl from the Future You Should Know.”

Reviews

[Roxane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent poems about trauma, self-harm, race, and womanhood. The poems that experiment with form are really interesting. I love how the footnotes and the final piece come together. Grad poetry.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read it out loud to my husband from cover to cover. It's deep and raw and beautiful.

[Amy (Other Amy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't get past the lie but the gods
of small things become the gods of all things in the dark

It's hard for me to express how a thing so bloody, woven around trauma, centered on rape and lynching, could be so full of comfort and hope. For me it is the relief when somebody finally says out loud what needed to be said, and says it well. I have said before that all I ask of any poetry is that it set me on fire. This did the job very nicely. Words in a master's hands.

[Renee Godding · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read for O.W.L.s Magical Readathon 2020, Potions: Shrinking Solution; a book under 150 pages

I’ve never pretended to be knowledgeable on poetry, and this collection is an excellent example of me, again, not being qualified to put a rating on someone’s thoughts.
Although there were some poems I really enjoyed, such as Entropy, the collection as a whole didn’t speak to me personally in the way some of my favourite poems do. I can however recognise the important themes the collection addresses and I commend the author for her bravery in speaking out about them. In my personal, uneducated opinion: it wasn’t for me.
My main dislike is not in the collection itself, but more the genre it was in. I struggle with modern poetry, as i prefer poems to have a more classical structure, cadence or rhythm. These poems don’t have that. If that doesn’t bother you, this might be a better fit for you than it was for me.

Favourite poem: Entropy

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

The poem could just die right here
but it is not at all tempered
not any of it real
I crawl into his lap, put my mouth
to his cheek and scream, holler, you can still hear
me, can't you?

The blurb from Morgan Parker wasn't noticed when I picked this up at the library. There wasn't any solid sense of expectation. This is grim beauty, a unique voice that betrays scars. I gasped a few times. I marveled.

[Ruxandra Grrr]

The thing about being poor
Is that you spend your days pointing.

Funny thing about poetry is that you cannot guess at how you will connect emotionally with it and this one rather missed me. Listened to Camonghne Felix narrating it, for an hour, on the balcony, in the dark and I can definitely appreciate parts of it and specific poems, but this did not hit at this time and so I don't feel comfortable rating it.

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

*I suppose I'm allowed to write this now.*

A poem review forthcoming, when I'm allowed to write one.
-By Philip Habecker

I kept notes about this book
on a phone
for which I was served a warrant
on Tuesday morning
Now I can't think what to say
Except that I'm living out
The paranoia-inducing fear
I've read into
Oh so many books on the black experience.
The, "why are you looking at me like I'm guilty?"
The, "I tried to do the right thing in a confusing
situation and now I'm caught up in this mess."
"What about jail...
... ... ... ... have you thought about jail?
What it might
... ... ... ... mean?
Have you thought about people who've been
... ... ... ... in jail
... ... ... ... five years?"

Mr. White Man can't handle the stress for a day
... ... a week
... ... ... ... has it been a month?
Define "handle"
"Well... well... black people actually've
... ... been in jail for for hundred years
... ... ... ... -We've ben here in America."

Imagine.
Imagine.
You have a good imagination.
Imagine: mad at the cops.
... ... ... ... for coming after you.
... ... ... ... ... ... one time.

In reading a book.
You build yourself a boat.

A book on trauma.
... ... and blood...
... ... ... ... and black...
... ... ... ... ... ... and... ...
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... How dare you...

Give me back my phone.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

for me, to read poetry is to marvel at language, at form. felix is a master of this. there is so much grief and trauma in this collection and it’s exhausting. yet, felix manages to arrange it all in such a way that allows you to walk through it—it’s as if she’s holding your hand as she offers these moments of her life. the poems about the zimmerman trial made me flush with anger all over again and think how unfair it is to be young and black in this country, and at no fault of our own. yet, there were moments of quiet marvel as she weaved these words together and you had to admire her resiliency at the end of it all. collections such as this remind me why i’ve always written poems and why it’s something i want to continue to pursue in my life. there is so much beauty in our lives, even in the painful moments. felix’s work here is a shining testament to that.

[Jerrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were a few poems here that were great. Poems on the Zimmerman trial and teenaged confusion were affecting. Many of the poems, however, felt flat. Overall, a collection that was a bit uneven.

[keondra freemyn]

really enjoy how felix employs form to further the themes in the collection. the collection is less cohesive than i prefer - likely a result of the thematic thread of the collection not being revealed until the very end. it’s a quick read that sparks a lot of reflection. looking forward to reading more by the author.

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

hm, this was really a mixed bag for me. there were some lines that felt like true gems, but a many of the poems were overwritten or incomprehensible to me. it's also a short collection, so maybe just less of a variety of poems that everyone could find something in.

[Kelsey Hennegen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had encountered one or two of the poems in this collection but I developed a much deeper appreciation reading the collection as compiled in its entirety. I feel one ought to do this with all poetry, to read a poet not only in anthologies and literary magazines, but to experience the full arc of a single collection. Felix is blunt, bold, acerbic, tender, human. A poem like 'Trap Queen' starts unflinchingly smutty, a woman owning her body, her reputation, the way others lust for her. Resurgently a woman, a black woman, an object of desire. But, ah, the shift the poem takes. Suddenly we see the vulnerability, the hollowness. We're invited to consider what it means to seek and claim this sort of empowerment. Utterly embodied, a body that feels like it doesn't belong to the speaker. And the close! This objectification, the irrelevance of speaker's personhood. The world has collapsed her into her body, a body that is read by the world as sex object, as threat, as tramp. Cyclical. Both about her and entirely not about particular here, just the body that is here and now.

[Barton Smock · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t know art could do this. Do these. As in, I didn’t know a vision could project itself as singular and, with that projection, distract its own shape long enough to give periphery a stomach. Camonghne Felix is an asker and a teller. A thinker one rethinks so that one might get the chance to pose the same question a second time. How was fire born? Fire was born plural. Is nostalgia real? The aftermath of origin is real. Can you describe embodiment? Description is alone; description cannot swim.

Not my answers. 'Build Yourself A Boat' is a book that marks its words and comes back for them.

[Yvonne · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were a few poems I liked in here, but overall I didn't find most of these to be memorable (there were a couple of exceptions.)

I did really like "Imagine??? My Sister an Astronaut???" for the line: some shit only white people think to study because access is a frame of reference. I have a physics degree, and throughout my time in undergrad, there were only two black women and one black man whose time in the department overlapped with mine. This poem reminded me of the fact that STEM in general is not all that diverse.

I also liked "On Entropy" and "Sleeping on Adderall."

While the others probably won't stick with me, I didn't dislike any of them. I don't quite feel qualified to judge this on the technical aspects of poetry, so I'll leave it at that and point out my rating is based mostly on how much I enjoyed the collection as a whole since that's all I can really speak to.

[Jasmine · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5

I honestly feel like so much of this went straight over my head. While I loved some of the poems, in particular, the Zimmerman poems and 'No Shade, Though', I didn't quite love them all enough. It was a little flat for me, especially as I had to read so much of this a few times over to see if I could really connect with it, but I just couldn't. Sadly not for me, but I know there are people who will find home in this book.

Trigger warnings for rape, racism and cutting/self-harm.

[Katie.dorny · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few poems here blew me away but others had too disjointed a structure for my mind to connect as it instead started to wander.

The topics discussed were intimate, raw and made me emotional - however the way they were immortalised in poetry made it a struggle to truly connect.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning. I meant to savor this, and instead inhaled it over two sittings. Felix is very good at riding the knife-edge of discomfort and pulling you along with her.

After reading this collection it’s easy to imagine that I know her and have known her for years, as she wraps the reader in the kind of web of personal experiences that normally comes from years of shared history. Of course, it’s one sided.

I look forward to see what Camonghne Felix does next, as a writer, and a political strategist. I think her voice is equally needed in both spheres.

[Tara Betts]

I reviewed this book for NewCity, a Chicago-based arts & entertainment publication. Click the link to read the review.

[Jalisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

The poems about the Zimmerman trial (Zimmerman Testimonies: Day 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), Contouring the Flattening and the ending letter connected the most for me. The others will require another reading. I appreciate that the author played with form and structure and forced you to look head on at the pain, self-mutilation, and what remains.

[jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Damn this is incredible.

[Douglas · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s a scattered (or perhaps patterned) cycle of poems about the Zimmerman trial in here. This is essential reading for them alone.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sealey Challenge 2020 - 1/31
I wish I had been in a position to read this out loud, or listen to it being read, because I think the rhythm of these poems would come through stronger out loud. As it was, this is a beautiful and heart wrenching collection that will weigh heavy as you read. But getting through it feels cathartic, like a snake sloughing off a layer of skin. When you can't swim, you build yourself a boat.

[Paige Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t have a whole lot to say here: poetry is hard to review because it’s occasionally subjective, and good poetry, as this is, permeates far beyond that surface in the reader’s experience. So many of these lines were beautiful, and Felix’s structure and formatting are both uniform and unique. This collection touches on broad topics while also staying close to home, and it is beautiful in its language, stories, and handling of darker themes.

[meggggg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this for Diannely Antigua's MFA workshop at UNH, where I was invited to sit in and share a poem. Profound stuff. I loved the interpolation of Felix's mother's narrative alongside her own, through the use of footnotes.

[Brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5⭐️

Language is such an incredible thing and how words are strung together. I randomly came across this little poetry collection. It’s a tough one, but also very good. Felix's ability to convey emotion and shape her words is very beautiful. She masterfully tackles themes of trauma and healing that is equal parts powerful and evocative.


Lines I Want to Remember:

“I can’t get past the lie, but the gods of small things become the gods of all things in the dark.”

[Zora Satchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm still digesting this work. It spoke of hurt and heartbreak in relation to the body that I'm still mulling it over... The manifestation of water, memories, and violence is what is sticking with me the most right now. The footnotes intrigued me and I didn't know how to read them until the letter at the end. Now I'm going back through and rereading each poem with those foot notes to see how they shape the narrative of the poem differently. I LOVE the foot notes.Poets that left me feeling shaky and unsure were clarified. they are my favorite form decision of this work so far. I'm sure I will discover more upon rereading it.

[Paul S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

From: OR, IT'S ALL IN MY HEAD
"if this happens to you, what do you want me to do?"
"Burn the city down"
The poem could just die right here
but it is not at all tempered
not any of it real
I crawl into his lap, put my mouth
to his cheek and scream, holler, you can still hear
me, can't you?

This collection is intimate, angry, reflects on trauma, and throws a few haymakers.

Search Google for: Camonghne Felix "Meat"
Watch a video of her performing this piece.
It is raw.
It is bloody.

"Meat" is my favorite poem by Camonghne; it's not in this book but it's how I discovered her poetry (in a Breakbeat Poets collection).

[🌶 peppersocks 🧦 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reflections and lessons learned:
“What is there to fear when you’ve licked the edge”

Ooof - hurt and defeat filled diarised entries in long form poetry - an important emotional and considered modern world voice - commentary in an attempt to understand the exhausting unfairness that surrounds all

“It is possible for body to be wholly autonomous in how it chooses to preserve itself... no matter what you think you want it’s the body that decides...”

[Emily]

"I want to step out if my language
and light up, but the body is a container.
The body is a mold; I fit snugly: I can barely
breathe in here." --On Entropy

Really excellent collection. The recurring forms/motifs and footnotes wove together a series of wonderful individual poems into an even more satisfying whole.

[McKinney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Relatable.
Powerful.
Beautiful.