poems – Cannonball Read 17

“Remember what you must do when they undervalue you, when they think your softness is your weakness, when they treat your kindness like it is their advantage. You awaken every dragon, every wolf, every monster that sleeps inside of you and you remind them what hell looks like when it wears the skin of a gentle human.”

wild embers: poems of rebellion, fire, and beauty by Nikita Gill

June 14, 2025 by bjornsnipe Leave a Comment

I became interested in Nikita Gill’s poetry when I read an excerpt from her poem “This is Not A Love Poem” and wanted to pick up the book that contained it; this is not that book. That book is The Girl and the Goddess, which I still have to pick up sometime. Thankfully I enjoy Gill’s poetry on the whole. I started out bitterly resenting that this was the wrong book because that meant I would have to buy another of her books; now I […]

April 2024 Leftovers

X = : Poems by Stephen Berg

Charcoal Joe by Walter Mosley

A Game of Lies by Clare Mackintosh

The Hurricane Blonde by Halley Sutton

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon

L.A. Requiem by Robert Crais

Watch It Burn by Kristen Bird

Sleep With Strangers by Dolores Hitchens

The Fixer: Moguls, Mobsters, Movie Stars, and Marilyn by Josh Young

One of Us Is Wrong by Sam Holt

The Fade Out by Ed Brubaker

The Second Murderer by Denise Mina

Blackmailer by George Axelrod

The Darkest Glare: A Story of Murder, Blackmail, and Real Estate Greed in 1979 Los Angeles by Chip Jacobs

Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith

May 6, 2024 by Jake Leave a Comment

Happy April, y’all! X = : Poems**** This is why library book bingos are necessary. I only checked this one out because I needed to read a book of poems and I wanted to check the nettlesome “X” off the A-Z reading list. A convoluted reason to begin with and this wasn’t even the book I thought I was getting! I thought I’d get a different X by a different author. I’m glad I got this one. Some of these really spoke to me, including […]

“I deserve to be seen. To be noticed. To be heard. To be treated like a human.”

Starfish by Lisa Fipps

June 21, 2023 by GentleRain Leave a Comment

This is a very good novel told in free verse poems from the point of view of Ellie, who is about to enter sixth grade and whose best friend is moving away. She is fat and her mother is determined for her to lose weight by any means necessary, and she keeps pushing Ellie to get weight loss surgery. Ellie is also bullied at school for being fat and then the bullying continues at home by her mother and brother. Her sister also joins in […]

Cohesive beauty that’ll knock you off your feet

An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo

December 18, 2020 by Mobius_Walker 2 Comments

Joy Harjo a member of the Mvskoke Nation and is the current Poet Laureate of the United States. In An American Sunrise, Harjo skillfully crafts a collection poems that are deeply personal to her own life, highly informative of the Native history and experience, and wonderfully universal in truth and beauty. What I found the most beautiful of the entire collection was Harjo’s ability to weave not just consistent themes throughout the entire collection but her ability to layer details, events, and people throughout the […]

“Your heart is beating, isn’t it? You’re not in chains, are you?”

Felicity by Mary Oliver

December 26, 2019 by narfna 2 Comments

This is one of those books I never would have picked up on my own, so thanks, Read Harder, for doing your job. I do not read much poetry at all, and that is because some that I have read in the past has been pretentious as hell or impenetrable, or both, but even when it hasn’t been, my favorite thing about reading is narrative, and most poetry doesn’t have that, so. I’d just rather spend my reading time on novels, and the very occasional […]

Y’all…. This one’s gonna be a bit different

November 10, 2018 by NTE 5 Comments

Lemme tell you a not-so-secret-secret about ‘adulthood’: Nobody knows what the f they are doing. So much of being an adult is dealing with sucky situations – all the sudden a lot of your friend’s parents are dying, or your sister-in-law gets cancer (again), or this one has an affair that devastates that one, or your cousin suffers another miscarriage while her sister is expecting twins. Literally, life just becomes chock full of situations that you are not prepared to face, and suddenly you […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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