Review
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“Yrsa’s work is like holding the truth in your hands. It
sweats and breathes before you. A glorious living thing.”
—Florence Welch, of Florence + the Machine
“yrsa daley-ward’s is a symphony of breaking and
mending. this whole book is an ache. and a balm. daley-ward
effortlessly mines the . the diamond from the difficult. the
things that are too bright and taboo. she lays her hands on the
pulse of the thing. and gives wide air to the epic realities of
women. the unfamiliar. the familiar. sexuality. poverty. sex
work. sadness. joy. damage. and restoration. assigning them all
the grace. all the nurturing. and all the love they deserve. an
expert storyteller. of the rarest. and purest kind—daley-ward is
uncannily attentive and in tune to the things beneath life.
beneath the skin. beneath the weather of the everyday. her poetry
and prose are and distant. sonorous and staunch.
delicate and metal. unwilling to yield and wondrously supple.
daley-ward’s extraordinary talent. ability. to both see and write
the veins of the true life. the true lives. is a gift. a breath.”
—nayyirah waheed, author of salt. and nejma
“[Daley-Ward] has a knack for getting directly to a story’s
heat-point, and once there, to distill the emotions within it
down to a line or two. . . . [An] impressive debut.”
—Hanif Abdurraqib, The Atlantic
“Who decided that only a picture can paint a thousand words? . .
. [Daley-Ward] examines the alchemy between mind and body—with
subjects ranging from trauma to hunger to desire.”
—Elle
“[ is], first and foremost, about being human, but [it] also
thoughtfully, skillfully, and pissed-off-edly dive[s] into the
complexities of race in our new world.”
—Glamour
“Daley-Ward’s short poems cover subjects like depression, falling
in and out of love, and sexuality, with a fierce staccato that,
as the title suggests, cuts deep.”
—Vogue
“[ is] the one poetry book every young Black girl will
appreciate. . . . [With] poems that touch the heart,
question societal norms and talk about the complexity of
sexuality, [Yrsa Daley-Ward] has a book of great depth.”
—Essence
“Another stunning excavator of human heat and light, Yrsa
Daley-Ward goes straight to the messy beating heart of animal
attraction with , mesmerizing poems that strip bare the pain
and beauty of negotiating longing, sex and love.”
—HuffPost
“The perfect title for a book that looks for that hard place
between the will and the . . . . is a bounty of
passionate and pained lines, narrators whose hearts have been
turned, twisted, and sometimes stomped, but who remain open and
willing—because how else could we live?”
—The Millions, “Must-Read Poetry”
“ opens with a small explosion. . . . The poems that follow
pick up the dual meaning...of threat and of erotic desire. Often,
the two are intertwined. . . . Excellent.”
—The Paris Review (Staff Picks)
“[] is an interrogation of self, offering a lyrical autopsy
on the manner in which we are harmed by the traumas of those who
share our dark skin, female gender, and cultural displacement.”
—Vice
“Daley-Ward has become a powerful voice of Black womanhood,
speaking of her experiences and wisdom gleaned from growing up as
a first-generation British woman of African and Caribbean
heritage.”
—Dazed
“Inspiringly relatable, Yrsa’s poetry voices the acknowledgement
and validity. The transparency of exposed darkness is clothed in
pretty, but still effective, verses that pack empowering womanly
sass.”
—Saint Heron, “14 Books to Add to Your Library”
“[Yrsa Daley-Ward] is at the realm of a new wave of contemporary
poets who inspire an unprecedented level of empathy and
accessibility through their honest and raw approach. . . . [A]
powerful collection of a woman facing tumultuous inner and
external battles head on, delivered with a hard-hitting
directness, yet with inflections of optimism throughout that are
bound to touch readers to their core.”
—i-D Magazine
“The actor, author, model, and poet draws from her own
experiences as well as issues affecting today’s society
throughout her work and is truly a storyteller (‘some tall, some
dark’) of the soul.”
—PopSugar
“You’ll want this one on your bookshelf.”
—HelloGiggles
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About the Author
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Yrsa Daley-Ward is a writer and poet of mixed West Indian
and West African heritage. Born to a Jamaican mother and a
Nigerian her, Yrsa was raised by her devout Seventh Day
Adventist grandparents in the small town of Chorley in the North
of England. She splits her time between London and Los Angeles.
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