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A beautiful collection/memoir by Crystal Wilkinson with stark, well-placed illustrations by Ron Davis. These brief pieces will punch you in the heart.
A beautiful collection of poems that shriek and whisper what it is to be a woman, a Black woman, a faithful, loving, mindful, independent woman whose understanding and invitation of ancestry and history are marked by recipes, fireflies, Appalachian topography, and Prince. These poems will let you dance and yell, salivate and tempt, breathe, cry, and remember. And then, you will wonder, why isn’t there more, but also, this will be enough for now. The only issue I have with this book is that her g...
I'm probably biased because I grew up in the country, but this book reminded me of home. It captures the feelings of longing I have for my home state. The memories I've made with my grandmothers, the lightning bugs I caught with my cousins, of the food that's filled my soul. It's written beautifully and an easy read. It being in prose helps it flow pleasantly. There are some hard topics, but definitely worth the read.
Absolutely breathtaking. An incredible collection of poems.
LOVE! This book is stunning!
(Trigger warnings for racism, assault, death, and physical abuse).An absolutely beautiful book about a culture that is rarely talked about. It really opened my eyes to the beauty of the lifestyle and some of the struggles, with the book reading like a train of thought or a diary. This is one of those books where the writer spills their guts on the page, and it was made all the more powerful and touching for it.I adored how they didn't just stick to prose or poetry, heck they didn't even condense...
Beautiful verses about longing and childhood and memory and looking back and pastness of the past. And it is the language that will stay with you, linger, sweet-scented rain. A recommended read for everyone looking for the beautiful things language can do. The standing metaphors and giant imageries. my god! I found myself weeping, yearning to hold my childhood, the traditions, the women that came before me. This book is a gift, a parcelled gift. Crystal is a gift.
Tender, startling poems, country as all get out. Fascinated by the repeated material in the poems “The Creek” and “A Meditation on Grief.” I have never seen a collection quite like this and have already used it to teach a class of young poets.
A beautiful collection of poetry—intimate, moving, and full of life, Wilkinson’s poems invite you to sit down at the kitchen table and listen and savor each one.
What a wonderful, magical, heartbreaking, joyful collection of poems. Crystal Wilkinson’s voice speaks of time past, the present and the future. It would have been possible to read this collection in one sitting but I tried to space it out. To sit with her words. Highly recommend.
Beautiful.A gift to poetry readers, folks interested in family, healing, resilience, stories... will read again and again.
This collection serves as a beautiful love letter to Wilkinson's rural roots. As always, she writes beautifully, simply, and with so much soul. My favorite, "Praise Song for the Kitchen Ghosts" weaves a beautiful story about the cooks in her life, her past, and her ancestry. A lyrical ode to food from family kitchens. Favorites - Terrain- Black rapunzel- The water witch on invasion- The water witch on reading- O tobacco- Dig if you will the picture- The creek- Dear Johnny p- Mother's day- A medi...
Loved, loved, loved this collection that reads in a way like a memoir.
As featured in Quick Lit on Modern Mrs Darcy.I've been a fan of Kentucky poet Crystal Wilkinson since reading her excellent novel The Birds of Opulence several years ago and was eagerly anticipating this new collection, which combines poetry and prose to great effect. Wilkinson seamlessly covers so much ground here—joy and heartbreak, love and trauma, heritage and family, Prince songs and plenty of food. Favorites include the poems Dance and Heritage, and the prose piece Praise Song for the Kitc...
For anyone who feels a deep longing for childhood home, a nostalgia for family stories and relationships, and for those who want to understand more about the pull of place, this gorgeous collection of poetry and memories will fill a void and satiate the soul’s hunger.
Evocative. Exquisite. Essential. This is the type of book I will read again and again. The author takes the reader on an extraordinary journey through the path of her childhood and upbringing, right up to the phenomenal woman she is today. Her imagery is so vivid, you can smell and taste the foods in the kitchen settings she describes. In “Dig If You Will the Picture,” she brings you right there with her dancing to Prince music when she shows the deeper reason why his music resonates so much to
Beautiful heartbreaking truths. I took this collection in slowly, and I still need to read it again to absorb it all. Every poem is rich, and the whole book offers a deep experience I can’t recommend enough.
I don’t often quote poetry in reviews because it doesn’t translate well, but here’s an exception, because it’s perfect: “Imagine a girl, not yet trouble” Hear me out. It’s preceded by a snatch of Negro spiritual—“Wade in the water [...] God’s gonna trouble the water”—and followed by the story of a young girl’s baptism. It’s the first line of Wilkinson's first lyrical poem in the collection (the very first is a prose poem, elegant in its own way, but for my money Wilkinson’s lyric, compressed sen...
Perfect Black is a book of moving and heartfelt poetry with images that conjure the childhood and motherhood of a beautiful and creative writer. I laughed and wept as I read Crystal Wilkinson's lyrical stories.
