Check out these two reviews for Diannely Antigua's Ugly Music!
Claudia Cortese, of Muzzle Magazine, reads Ugly Music as a sexual parable of the "Modern Girl," even comparing the book to the song by Sleater Kinney. Her review follows the progress of Diannely's narrator from religious girlhood through the development of her sexuality and identity.
Cortese writes:
"Diannely Antigua’s Ugly Music is a book for our times—sardonic, self-effacing, sincere. The speaker is a bad feminist in the ways that we are all bad feminists—negotiating our desire for equality with the many ways we are imperfect. Although many themes thread through this 92-page book—mental illness, reproductive rights, sexual trauma, suicidality, immigration, masturbation, to name a few—the book coheres around the speaker’s distinct voice and perspective. Diannely Antigua’s poems embody the struggles of a modern girl who confronts both her privilege and oppression, sexuality and sexual trauma. Readers will surely fall as deeply in love with these brilliant, modern girl poems as I have."
Read the full review at Muzzle Magazine's website!
Emily Pérez's review of Ugly Music, written for Rhino Poetry, explores the conflicts and dualities present within Diannely's book. Pérez examines the contrast the book creates "between wanting and not, between desire and devastation," and suggests that it is "the liminal space in which [Diannely] holds the reader" that makes her words so "jolting."
"By blurring the lines between holiness and danger, self-sacrifice and self-preservation, humor and heartache, Ugly Music pushes boundaries and asks us to re-examine what we think we know. But reflection only comes after setting the book down; to hold it and read it is to be swept along in its thrilling, disquieting melody."
Read the rest of the review at Rhino Poetry, and find your copy of
Ugly Music here!
We are so excited to see this review out at Heavy Feather Review for Stay by Tanya Olson!
Esteban Rodríguez's reading of Stay focuses on the sentiment conveyed in the book's title—the longing we feel for those we love to remain with us. Tanya Olson's book explores many types of relationships and the many ways in which the people in our lives leave or stay. Rodríguez writes:
"Loss and departure can be tricky to write about; on the one hand, they’re something that every one of us has experienced in some shape or form, but on the other, that experience can be highly intimate and might not translate seamlessly to readers. Tanya Olson’s work, however, finds a way to make the personal relatable and relevant, and her latest collection, Stay, examines the way we make sense of the people and things that leave us."
Read the full article at Heavy Feather Review,
and get a copy of Stay today!
