I waited almost three months to read this collection because I was afraid it wouldn’t live up to my experience hearing Wise when she was featured at the Philly Pigeon Late-ish show in the spring. I wanted to love her poems in print the way I loved them when spoken aloud and my experience with the last few books of poetry I read left me doubtful that I could. Fortunately, Wise’s skill shines on the page just as much as it does on the stage. At times, it shone in writing even more so.

Because on the page, I could see more clearly the intentionality of her flow, the way she weaves the poetry sprouting on the city streets with the poetry budding behind not-always-accessible classroom doors. While reading, I could hear more clearly how her poetry sings not just because of how she performs it but also because of how she structures it on the page. And that level of craftsmanship created a rich, evocative environment that made it easy to lean into the love and pain, joy and grief, certainty and wonder that poured out of these poems.

From the first several pages, this collection of poetry gripped me emotionally, artistically, personally, and professionally, and rarely let me go until the end. I cannot wait to experience more of Wise’s work now that I have finished this book.

3.75 Stars. When I first read this book in elementary school over 20 years ago, there was something about it that stuck with me long after I finished it. It was one of few books I encountered that showed kids around my age dealing with something bigger than trying to fit in, do well in school, be themselves, and/or get along with their families. I loved plenty of books that focused on those other themes, but this book always felt more affirming of my own experiences as a kid who felt things deeply and reflected intensely on my thoughts and feelings.

With all that in mind, I finally decided to reread this book to see if it held up to my childhood memories. Fortunately, for the most part, it did.

Despite not having as tight of a narrative arc as I would have liked and not having much explicit diversity beyond socioeconomic status, this book was just as funny, heartfelt, and interesting in a nuanced yet kid-friendly way as I remembered it. More significantly, it still did a really solid job of showing how kids are impacted by different kinds of loss and how much kids silently carry unbeknownst to those around them. This was the message that was most important to me as a kid and remains the best part of the book for me as an adult.

Although I don’t know that I’d recommend this book to modern day kids because it feels very nineties in a way I don’t know that they could appreciate, I am glad I read it as a kid and glad I took the time to reread it as an adult. Also, this book 100% should have been made into a 90s movie because I would have worn that VHS out.

The poetry in this collection felt aurally poetic without consistently feeling emotionally poetic. Keita clearly has a keen ear for consonance, assonance, rhythm, and flow but that ability never fully bridged the emotional distance I felt from the stories she tried to convey. This was particularly disappointing since so many of them are set in my home city, Philly.

Despite my disappointment with this collection, I’d be highly interested in seeing it performed as a choreopoem like Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf or some kind of experimental recording like Marlon T. Riggs’ film, Tongues Untied. I felt early on that these poems would likely have landed differently for me if I had heard them read/performed. Now that I’ve finished the entire collection, I feel more strongly that the messages and themes of the collection would evoke the intended emotions more consistently if they were combined with a performance element.

After reading Maud Martha earlier this year, I expected that I would enjoy Brooks’ first collection of poetry more than I did her prose. Unfortunately, that was not the case. I found much of this collection simplistic in an almost juvenile way and lacking the emotional and technical precision I look for in poetry. There were a handful of poems that managed to stand out due to their weighty subject matter and strong thematic progression (e.g., “the mother,” “Ballad of Pearl May Lee,” “the murder”), but there weren’t enough gems in the collection to make this book truly shine.