Name: I Don't Think I'm Straight
Rating: 4.45 (11 reviews)
ISBN: 9798881605551

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January 24, 2026

What is poetry? Like many categories, it feels like one that's almost best described by that old adage, I know it when I see it. But let's try, for a bit, to actually pin the idea down. The term itself comes from Ancient Greek, of course, with the original meaning of the process of emergence of something that did not previously exist -- or, more simply, to make. I like that meaning. Poetry takes a pile of words, all of which mean something (or many things) on their own, and builds something bigger out of it, something that didn't previously exist within the words, but emerges when they're arranged just so. Sometimes that's rhythm, or rhyme, symbolism -- metaphor, simile, ambiguity. While I think historically it's had a more general use, because of the sidelining of poetry and centering of prose in contemporary writing, it also ends up with the added onus of having meaning. Something special, something that justifies it being packaged in this form. I interrogate all of this because I think it's interesting, and I think it's relevant to my review. To show my cards, I did not like this book. Of course, I'm biased because despite having had many of the same experiences it didn't particularly "speak to me", and I think that's a lot of what it's selling. But on a deeper level, it made me question my perception of what is poetry, and why this felt like it didn't quite fit in my definition. Now, let's be clear, more than any other format poetry is very personal. Particularly since the late 50s and the confessional poetry movement headed by figures like Anne Sexton and (my favourite) Sylvia Plath, there's been an increased emphasis on poetry as offering up a piece of the author, and when it reflects back something of the reader that can make it stronger. While sometimes I think I can disdain relatability as the centre of what works of literature provide to readers, it's not something I'm divorced from! Lots of works are really important to me because they speak to something in my life or have changed my outlook & perspective. So, ok, if this book did that for you -- excellent. It succeeded at one of its core aims. But beyond that, I'm sorry to say I found it lacking. I've prepared some examples to illustrate my point. If you have your copy at hand, grab it and flip to page 24. I can't really get the right section in a better way because, oddly, there's no titles to any of the poems in this book, giving it a disjointed and somewhat free-flowing feeling. (Maybe that's good, but it still really annoyed me. It's hard to identify where poems begin and end, despite the fact they generally are separate thoughts so it doesn't seem to be completely one stream of consciousness.) Here is where we begin to get meditations on grief on this book. Someone has died, and Dorta writes about the experience, saying, "i am grieving,/ i am distraught,/ i am shrivelling and inconsolable./ i have lost someone who meant so much to me/ and now the only thing i can do/ is feel it all over." Now for the second part of this exercise, try read Alan Sexton's Effects. I tested this out on my mum earlier, and she ended up crying despite saying she "doesn't get poetry", so fair warning. This is one of my favourite poems, and I think it really effectively discusses grief by making you FEEL those emotions associated, introducing his mother first, then pulling her back away as the poem continues. It's complicated! I can't sum up everything it's about. Sexton discusses the difficulties of her having a smaller world than him, references his father and their relationship, meditates on how horrible her slow decline was, makes you feel everything with texture and image, before the final gut-punch line. I bring all of this up, because for me that's the something more I'm looking for out of poetry. Actually, after I read it to my mum we ended up talking for quite a while about grief, her own relationship with her father, the difficulties of these experiences. Poetry made us feel something, made us question things, brought us closer together. I think it's because I've read so many wonderful poems like this that Dorta's work unfortunately falls flat for me. In comparison, go back to those lines I picked out. I understand that it's also about grief, but it is direct, shallow. It tells me how she feels, but I don't feel the same. She is sad, she has lost something, and she is sad. Now of course, that being said, it makes it a very accessible form of poetry. Again, it's hard for me to suggest that's a bad thing. I'm a super fan of poetry and anything that gets people to be able to engage with it is a massive plus for me. And I'm sure writing this poetry was very cathartic for Dorta, working through and writing about her experiences. But unfortunately, I just didn't connect with this book in a way I would've hoped for.

PS: Let's also be clear, I'm not anti social media poetry. I'm going to take this opportunity to share some poems from some of my favourites on tumblr which I think have some similar themes of girlhood and fitting inside of your skin and complicated feelings of grief. shame is a girl's second skin by fatima aamer bilal is one I come back to over and over again, and I love the way it uses page space. my mother calls the new land unbearable in the same breath as miraculous by k.i.n.g. hits me HARD in its discussion of being an immigrant daughter. "I'm sure they would have preferred one of my cousins/ who don't mingle among foreigners/ or stare with longing at the sharpness of a/ woman's smile/ or want to be something more than this woman/ body given to them."

(Unrated because I don't really want to tank a brand-new book's rating -- there's not that many yet. But I'm sorry to say I would've given it 1 or 2 stars).

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I Don't Think I'm Straight

Isabella Dorta

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