Content Warning

April 1, 2022
Best known as a novelist--their newest is You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty (2022)--Emezi has also written a memoir, Dear Senthuran (2021), and now channels the same multiplicity of spirits into sharply pointed poems that crackle with sensual intensity. Moments of incomparable characterization stand out, like the ""velvet child upholstered in incoherent rage,"" often contrasting with the simple pleasures of Emezi's Igbo culture: ""the wet fibers from a ripe palm fruit / flat stones cracking the nut inside."" Emezi's lyrics radiate raw vulnerability in their exploration of themes of abuse, trauma, mental wellness, and sexuality. For unexpectedly enticing shock value, few poems can match the decadent, repulsive ""Self-Portrait as a Cannibal"" (""i told them about the thick / stickiness between my fingers / under my nails / the rawness of your skin / on my tongue, the brine""). Even poems that begin funny and hip (""spiritbae tells me stories over whatsapp"") can careen into the darker recesses of human psychology: ""i know in this my life matters less than a rape."" Heavy, unfettered, and transformative.

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November 18, 2022

In prickly, immersive language replete with biblical allusion, Ezemi moves from their award-winning fiction (including The Death of Vivek Oji) to a first collection of verse that continues their exploration of self and desire. The poet may present as "a ragtag doll/ scraps from men or places where i left myself," but the scraps we're given--stories of childhood, of broken marriage and seesawing relationships, of negotiating the world's hostility regarding bisexuality and race--are bound into one luminous whole. Desire, sexual and otherwise, reigns throughout ("bring me peace offerings--toffee melted into its wrapper// hold me as the sun buries itself"), but it's also desire thwarted. Even at the speaker's christening, the priest rejects as ungodly their chosen name--"a bank-wriggling snake"--and they are fated to live under "a white man's sky" where they are surprised to experience "loving someone who doesn't want to kill you." In the end, there is healing--"when I last came out i called myself free"--but it's not an easy road. VERDICT Though lacking the lushness of Emezi's best fiction, these poems urgently communicate a relatable search for identity and safety and will resonate with a wide range of readers wanting to undertake that search, too. Especially important in presenting another dimension of this gifted writer.--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

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