My review in The Brooklyn Rail:Grit and solitude, a poet’s best friends, are front and center in Maggie Nelson’s fourth book. Known for her genre-bending tale based on a personal experience, Jane, A Murder, this collection is pure verse. Of the three sections, the main one is about hanging around the toxic Gowanus Canal. Loss and redemption are central themes and the poet finds company in the company of the lonely. A “birder,” a “man in black,” strangers and rain attest to the somber mood. Thoug...

I like when she fails at resisting saying something.

“Because desire always exceedsits object. Because the energy you gave mefeels big enough to birth wings. BecauseI want you to push into the wetnessand I know it. Because of the saltand the wind. Because everythingthat is supposed to happenwill happen, is happening, orhas already happened. Becauseambivalence is more beautifulthan justice. Because my heart isshooting ahead, and I have no choicebut to follow it. Because I want youto be happy, with or without me.Because of the birds fleeing the stor...

...You have no ideawhat kind of light you'll let inwhen you drop the bowlIn the first section of this collection, "The Canal Diaries," Maggie Nelson spends a season as an observer of the Gowanus Canal, a direly polluted waterway in Brooklyn. At the same time she begins a new romantic relationship that preoccupies her but seems to go poorly almost right from the start. The weaving together of these two themes is seamless and fascinating, and this sharply observed memoir-in-poems is unforgettable,...

read this many times, translated parts into russian, and i still can’t get over the fact that she hung out on the gowanus canal at night after getting off her shifts, or that she was hung up on the piece of shit nick flynn. then again if i were in her shoes i’d probably have done the same

Perhaps actually 4.5A stronger collection than her first two (which I only recently read, is why I bring it up) -- this is the MAGGIE NELSON I know from her later work. I particularly liked the Canal sequence, and the final poem is to die for.

& 3 stars, as with so many poetry collections, for such similar reasons. i think this book peaked in the middle — that’s the place i felt tears threatening — and i liked the canal diaries, i liked quiet descriptions and attention to detail.

“Grief shines a light / as well as a dark”

a halo over the hospital absolutely destroyed me. i don’t think i ever cried this much reading a poem...“When you sleep I make sureyou stay breathing, make sure I’m therewhen you open your eyes, as you’re slightly strickenupon remembering the prison your body has become. I’m frightened, you say Then I’m sad, so sad to be paralyzed, and I’m sad tooYou can’t wipe away your tears because your handsdon’t move, and I can’t wipe them away eitherbecause it’s too abrupt a motion, everything nowneeds to

I just discovered this book at my parents’ house a week ago. My daughter is always telling me about Maggie Nelson, and I didn’t realize she and I were both published by Soft Skull Press, simultaneously. (My last Soft Skull book appeared the same year as this, 2007.) I dislike almost every living poet, but Maggie can actually write – has a gift for modulating sounds. For example:He writes like a spider got hold of a pen, it’s that wild.The lower rung of sky is washed in pinkbut the magic that sla...

I want Maggie Nelson's brain in my next life. It feels as if she has an unfair advantage.

The barbed wire is lovely tonightand the sparrows don't mind its tangle. How many ways are thereto get saturated in another's mind?I play my little movie of youover again, trying to discoverany lost details. When I open my eyesI see that rusty door across the canalthat leads from nowhere to nothing, just likethat Cuban prison, where the poetstumbles out of the sumpand God is waiting with his freedom *A gritty, visceral collection of unpretty poetry.I was blown away by The Hospital for Special

Our talks somehowsettle my heart, you said. Me too.Though how can it be, asmy heart has become so unsettledby you. But I trust youto take care ofyourself, and in a sensethat's all that matters. AndI, too, am finally learningsomething similar,howto protect the spirit's grandeur.

- y i k e s- this is my second nelson book (i read bluets earlier)- her poetry is definitely not my style- i wish her writing was more self-aware and less self-pitying- most of them are so literal?? might be better of as essays - also there are places in this book you realise that she is Very White - in poetry class i was told to not write using the unnecessary 'you' and i know now why that's annoying bc it was there alot in the book- the first part abt pollution etc was like how white women tal...

It's been 3 years since I last read Bluets (which I have reread several times over the years). She's still my go-to when I want something heartbreaking but comforting. Thank you so much, Maggie Nelson. Thank you for making me feel less lonely tonight.July 3, 2021. 10:20 pm. Bedroom. Parched mouth. Trying to nurse The Big Sad. Dresser handles look like creepy smiling mouths from where I'm typing this review. Don't really feel like checking any messages. Absolutely hate this feeling. Is it possibl...

"we share a brightnessIt's called deathin life.""Every morning the shadow of my hand hauntsthis table, asking, Can I bleedhere, can I become free here......though I know the shadow will soon returnwith new questions, likeIs this theater?Maggie Nelson is a brilliant writer. Here non-fiction works are interesting, sometimes riveting (Jane: A Murder, and, a favorite of mine, The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning), her lyrical essays (Bluets, one of my all-time favorite works) or poetry (The Latest Winter...

I'm kind of tempted to knock this down a star because it's more conventional than the startling Jane: A Murder, but that would involve denying Nelson is an excellent poet, and I just can't bring myself to it. Some of the thematic concerns and people she would later mention in the excellent Bluets crop up here, including her fascination with blue, a harrowing bit on her quadriplegic friend, and frank discussion of sexuality, but it does plenty enough to establish itself as a work separate from Bl...

"With all due humility, I have to sayI know it now, or it knows methe peace-feelingthat stays even as the body races and pantsabove or along it, when the team suddenly doesa jazz square in unison, when a dream repealsan impediment overnight, when the whole worldThe whole world is strobing"Ugh. No one writes like Maggie Nelson. One of the best books of poetry I've read. Although calling it poetry is almost wrong? It's a fluid story, written in a form that looks like poetry, but reading across poe...

First published in 2007, Soft Skull Press re-issued this edition in 2018. Maggie Nelson revisits this collection and shares her thoughts with The Paris Review here:https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/06/14/an-interview-with-maggie-nelson/This is the first of her poetry I've read and much like Nelson's prose, it powerfully blends desire, philosophy, and a tireless, probing curiosity/questioning. The quality of the writing seems pretty consistent throughout, but my reaction to the poems was r...

I enjoyed very much reading this book, especially the poems in The Canal Diaries and Something bright, then holes sections. I took my time reading them, savouring most of them. I liked the exploration into loss, emotions, the highs and lows of relationships, about the peaceful ones and the toxic ones that traps us despite our awareness, the efforts to make it work, the raw desire. I like honesty and sincerity and in these poems I got plenty of that"there ought to be a lawagainst this loneliness,...