I'm Always so Serious

by Karisma Price

 " I’m Always so Serious  is brilliant.”   —Terrance Hayes, winner of the National Book Award for  Lighthead  
Karisma Price’s stunning debut collection is an extended meditation on Blackness, on family, on loss. Anchored in New Orleans and New York City, these poems braid personal and public histories into a cultural reckoning of past and present. James Booker speaks to Ringo Starr, a phone “Autocorrects ‘Nigga’ to Night,'” If Beale Street Could Talk is recast with characters from The Odyssey. In these pages there is grief, there is absence, there is violence—“We know that mostly everything around us / is measured in blood.”—but there is also immense love and truth. Karisma Price has created a serious masterpiece, a book “so dark you have no other option but to call it / precious.”

Genres: Poetry

92 pages, Paperback

First published February 14, 2023

Reviews

[Chloe Xiang · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an impressive and extremely creative collection of poetry that has a strong command over both the technical and the emotive: using imagery, sound, diction to share meaningful histories. What I liked a lot about the collection was Price’s ability to be both intertextual and interpersonal, referencing people such as her mother, father, James Booker, and Beyoncé. I loved the portrait of New Orleans as home that Price so dutifully imparted to her readers. Price’s poems carry multitudes—they aren’t simply observations of her surroundings, but how “everything around us is measured by blood.” The book is so creative, playing with visual form and using the perspectives of people like James Booker to expand their legacies and biographies. I think, for me, some of the more abstract poems were harder to wrap my head around and I wish there were more concrete moments to grasp onto. Also, as a reader who isn’t familiar with a lot of the names that were discussed, it was harder to connect with those poems without further searching. I don’t think that is a flaw of the collection itself, as I am not necessarily the direct audience, and it actually pushes me to learn and explore more about important historical figures, like Alice Coltrane and Cicely Tyson.

[Melblue · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just kept exclaiming, "that is such a good poem" over and over. Wow. Wow

[toby :D · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars
i love new orleans and my mom

[Alex Sharps · Rating 4 out of 5]

favourite poem was ‘we wear each other’s names’

[Tomiwa Sobande · Rating 5 out of 5]

Will def make time to reread in the future

[Amelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of poems that evoke melancholy, sensitivity, and at times, upset. Price plays with form and vocabulary, creating a melange of poems that are timely and breathtaking.

[Gwen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
some great poems, some less strong... the experimental structures often took away from the overall meaning of the poems

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong four and a half. Price’s is one of the strongest and most consistently engaging poetic voices I’ve encountered in a while, and this small book had some mighty poems in it. There are also some strong-but-flawed lesser poems, which would probably stand out in any anthology containing work by most other poets currently working. Compared with Price’s strongest works, like the towering “My Phone Autocorrects ‘Nigga’ to ‘Night’” poems that are just very good look unfairly weak by comparison. At her best Price reminds me of Paul Celan, with her lateral movements among ideas and images, jolts I never would have expected, that shake up so many of these great poems. Price is young yet—she may now be thirty. She writes like someone with decades more experience, and her unique voice seems to come with a perceptive universe all of its own. Lots of folks seem to be acclaiming Price for the strength of her work so it seems safe to say this book is on its way to becoming a contemporary classic. The language is magnificent, the poetics strong. None of the small number of weaker poems is a waste of time. The best poems are worth immediately rereading. She even has a list of allusions explained in the back of the book to open up the poems to those not familiar with the places and people she’s talking about, which is truly a class act in a poet who wants to make broad statements and references but also wants to make sure readers can follow along with her. I’m going to buy every book Price puts out. She’s an immense talent and I can only imagine she’s gotten so much better since this was published. Won’t be surprised if whatever she writes next is flawless.

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this debut collection, the poet experiments with form in creative ways, some more successfully than others: a phone’s autocorrect, remixed song lyrics, anecdotes, snippets of eavesdropped conversations, a neighbor’s anxious shouts, God’s furtive and malicious whispers. Some of the Poem Notes (e.g., “Backjumping”) are more interesting and intelligible than the poems themselves, which sometimes seem more invested in manipulating form than conveying the substance of the poet’s truth.

“I asked God
for mercy. There was no answer.

I’ve decided you don’t have to answer
me either. Because I love you, surrender

to the only darkness heavier than sleep.
Do not come back from it.”
—from “Demeter, reimagined as a Black Woman, Speaks to Persephone” (p. 75)

Favorite Poems:
“I’m Always So Serious”
“A Woman Lovingly Strokes Her Lover’s Arm in the Bookstore Because They’re in Love”
“The Maple Leaf Piano Speaks to the Bayou Maharajah”
“What Do You Have Left to Say?”
“An Elegy Beginning and Ending with a Mouse”
“Demeter, Reimagined as a Black Woman, Speaks to Persephone”
“A Woman Yells, ‘Maxine!’ 14 Times Outside My Brooklyn Window”
“Can’t Afford Sadness in a Time Like This”

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

“As happiness, As the wailing tambourine/that replaced my uncle's gun, As the dancing/it does when he waves it at the man who cut him/off, As the rattle of pills in my father's/hands to slow the multiplying cells,/As me thinking something can be/holy, As a pig, As a poem that doesn't mention/the word father or water or drowned,/As a lie as red as a crow's mouth,/As a streetlight whose bulb never breaks,/As a mother who has a child who's allowed to be/nothing more than their age, As weeknight curfew,/As reparations, As a new car, As a down payment,/As the bay leaf inside the pot of red beans boiling/on Mardi Gras day, As a Zulu coconut, As something/so dark you have no other option but to call it/precious, As a sibling, As a rotten tooth,/As an aunt who has warmed the leftovers/of our family before sundown, As whatever's/left of my skeleton after the family pet/has sucked the sorrow from every bit of my marrow. (Self-Portrait 5)

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poems about identity, being Black in America, New Orleans, family, trauma, and survival.

from Self-Portrait: "As happiness, As the wailing tambourine / that replaced my uncle's gun, As the dancing / it does when he waves it at the man who cut him / off, As the rattle of pills in my father's / hands to slow the multiplying cells, / As me thikning something can be / holy"

from All the Men I Love: "carry a sweetness: reluctance, a voice laced / with honey, anything society deems ordinary on a woman. / My father was a soft violence taken by a softer violence / the size of a golf ball."

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection comes with blurbs by some of my favorite poets, and, yes, they are earned. Price's poems are gorgeously written, full of evocative phrases and powerful imagery.

She has several "after" poems, something I enjoy as I love the explicit conversationality of the form. There is also an erasure and a golden shovel, as well as poems that play with visual elements. It is an collection that doesn't seem afraid to experiment and still maintains a strong poetic voice.

I knew from the first poem, "Self-Portrait," that her collection would resonate. I am adding it to my "to purchase" list.

[Becky Robison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this vibrant poetry collection—vibrant both thematically and formally. I visited New Orleans for the first time last year, and I could tell Price was writing from that space. There’s humidity and rot and music and heat and celebration and bright colors all throughout her work. I especially liked her poems about/to pianist James Booker. (An incredible Wikipedia page if you have a few minutes.)

This review was originally published on my blog.

[ELK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this: her voice, her vision and the way the collection overall both engaged and challenged me. Some really creative & adroit uses of visual form; dense incorporation of art & cultural references (contemporary & past) that were compelling when familiar to me and edifying when not. Also thought it was pretty accessible for academic poetry, which I always think is a good thing.

[May-Ling · Rating 3 out of 5]

this collection didn't land as well with me as other reviews. i didn't feel like i connected with the messages and mostly did not understand most of the poems. price is experimental with text placement and even word orientation on the page, which is playful and imaginative. a couple of poems stood out to me, but not the majority.

[Nikita Ladd · Rating 5 out of 5]

God I loved this collection. Her voice is striking, as are her details, her references, the quotes and music and literature sewn into these poems. Favorite poems were all the poems titled after the collection, as well as "And Elegy Beginning and Ending with a Mouse," "When Comparing Your Hands to Your Father's," and"Poem at the End of the World (or Last Week's Dream)."

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Both lovely and heartbreaking. Everything here resonates with loss. It's a single note virtually everything rings with. Not the biggest fan of the horizontal-page lines. They're so long (and others in the same poem are short, normal) they cease to matter. You can't read them the way they appear on the page. Just give me a prose poem. Still, the book is worth the read.

[Kenneth Noguera · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book maybe 3 times throughout my reading period. What I found was something special especially for a first collection. I plan on returning to this book soon. If you love poetry, please give this book a read.

[abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read the entire thing in one sitting. Absolutely raw beautiful writing. Her style is right up my alley- romanticizing the mundane. Definitely a new favorite poet. As a new orleans native, i loved recognizing all the different references. Looking to see if she has any more work immediately

[Burgi Zenhaeusern · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many of these poems, regardless of their astonishing formal variety, are lists of one kind or another, all passionate, sensuous, and breathtaking. I was positively swept off my feet by them, and really grateful for the experience. Wonderful poetry indeed.

[Cate · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book I will return to

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

2023 Sealey Challenge 24/31

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent collection from Karisma Price. I read over practically every poem several times because they were just so haunting and beautiful.

[laila* · Rating 4 out of 5]

striking!! i wish it was longer

[Carolyn Hembree · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite debuts.

[Shriti Chatterjee · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I’m reminded that everyone I love is dying.” 💔

[Andy Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

Endlessly inventive and engaging throughout.

[Kasey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw Karisma perform a few poems from this book at an LSU reading. I immediately had to get a copy.

[Ron Bernas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Serious subjects treated often in light ways. I wanted to like this more than I did. Not sure exactly why I didn't, but there it is.

[Siani-Simone Ammons · Rating 4 out of 5]

GAH DAHM….so many words for how this book actually ripped me open at the seams then stuffed me back with so much feeling. ms. price, you are a genius!!!