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There Should Be Flowers
"Espinoza's debut is a searing interrogation of the world and the self at once. Here, the body is a fixation-as if to look away from it, even briefly, is to risk having it erased. As such, this is a book of unblinking human preservation, and how we trespass ourselves seeking safer spaces. "There is nothing I love more than an honest storm," Espinoza writes. There Should Be Flowers is a storm to ravage and rearrange us from our crushing certainties. This book doesn't need a blurb. It simply needs to be read."
-Ocean Vuong, author of Night Sky with Exit Wounds
-Ocean Vuong, author of Night Sky with Exit Wounds
100 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2016
12 people are currently reading
1083 people want to read
About the author
Joshua Jennifer Espinoza
12 books277 followersJoshua Jennifer Espinoza is a trans woman poet living in California. Her work has been published in Denver Quarterly, The American Poetry Review, Lambda Literary, PEN America, The Offing, and elsewhere. She is the author of two poetry collections: i’m alive / it hurts / i love it (boost house 2014), and THERE SHOULD BE FLOWERS (CCM 2016).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
November 8, 2016
// Trigger warnings in this book: transphobia, depression //
This is not an an easy book to read. Espinoza's words are meant to make you uncomfortable. They're so unflinching in their honesty but so gentle as well. There were several times when reading this where I had to put it down, take a very deep breath then pick it right back up.
What an important poet. What a necessary book.
This is not an an easy book to read. Espinoza's words are meant to make you uncomfortable. They're so unflinching in their honesty but so gentle as well. There were several times when reading this where I had to put it down, take a very deep breath then pick it right back up.
What an important poet. What a necessary book.
Read
February 9, 2023This was really the closest I think I have come to understanding the visceral experience of not belonging to the body you were born into. Really would recommend reading it for that alone.
July 26, 2018
Joshua Jennifer Espinoza joins Antonio Porchia, William Bronk, Emily Dickinson and Rumi on my short list of line-masters - this isn't just a beautiful-painful expression of being-trans (though it is that), it's the work of a prodigiously talented poet
My body ha ha ha. Your body ha ha ha.
Sometimes I think I'm going to die
and then I remember that I definitely am
going to die.
I am nowhere to be found in myself.
We are all approximations
of what we are.
You have a voice
but you can only use words
so you don't really have a voice.
God is in everything
a well meaning person once told me.
We've all seen what bodies can do
and it isn't pretty
but it could be.
I am going to a hell
called anywhere outside my apartment
It doesn't matter and I don't care
no, I care
no, it matters
but it can't and I won't let it
My body ha ha ha. Your body ha ha ha.
Sometimes I think I'm going to die
and then I remember that I definitely am
going to die.
I am nowhere to be found in myself.
We are all approximations
of what we are.
You have a voice
but you can only use words
so you don't really have a voice.
God is in everything
a well meaning person once told me.
We've all seen what bodies can do
and it isn't pretty
but it could be.
I am going to a hell
called anywhere outside my apartment
It doesn't matter and I don't care
no, I care
no, it matters
but it can't and I won't let it
December 29, 2020
Beautiful, stark, tear-inducing, frightening, hopeful, powerful, memorable, lucid, eye-opening, and ultimately transcendent...
Thank you, Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, for opening your heart, inviting us in, and through your poetry, sharing your journey as a trans-woman in a world that too often rejects what it doesn't understand.
Thank you, Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, for opening your heart, inviting us in, and through your poetry, sharing your journey as a trans-woman in a world that too often rejects what it doesn't understand.
January 25, 2021
This is an excellent book of poems. I really love it.
February 9, 2021
Challenging to read (both stylistically and emotionally), but rewarding.
May 25, 2025
Really liked the poems I liked, didn’t care for some tho
June 3, 2025
Her poetry style wasn't my favorite, but I really appreciate the themes she discusses! Crazy how this is no longer in publication.
November 21, 2022
All that womanhood
caught in the roof
of my mouth
was like honey.
I knew it would never
go bad
so I never said a word
about it.
–From "My First Love"
Espinoza's poetry is like balm on wounds I never even knew I had. She has a mastery of imagery that shines through in her grounded and minimalist style but what marks her work the most for me, another trans woman, is the way she hones so many of the feelings and experiences of our shared experiences with such definite and unique names. There Should be Flowers is the kind of work I will return to again and again, even after reading it front-to-back and back-to-front twice.
November 23, 2024
really a gorgeous book, my favorite pieces were "the moon is trans" and "i danced" but really every poem in here is so really beautiful
edit: reread just a few weeks after my first read and it's even better the second time. i feel like ill be reading this again and again my whole life 💜
edit: reread just a few weeks after my first read and it's even better the second time. i feel like ill be reading this again and again my whole life 💜
November 16, 2016
You need these poems in your life.
November 10, 2024
There's a type of poetry that's very trendy, very in vogue right now. The kind of poem that signals, I'm talking about things very deep and serious. It's free verse, with very evocative imagery, strung together in a series of non-sequitur sentences and phrases. Lyrically beautiful, but falls out of my head the moment I finish reading it because there were few logical connections between the simple, evocative lines. The connections between them, the larger point of the poem, is left as an exercise to the reader. The juxtaposition of unrelated images is the point.
The emotion was deep and real and raw. This is about being a woman, about being trans, about being a trans woman. About womanhood, about trans womanhood and the way it alienates trans women from the rest of the world, about being in your body, depression and isolation and distance and the expanse of the world and the sky. About sadness and wanting to be loved and wanting to die and wanting to live and silencing yourself, knowing who you are even as the rest of the world does not. The feelings it evoked were deep and real; the directness of the language, the loneliness and floatiness of it, evoked it very well. And maybe that brokenness, that disconnection, that string of non-sequiturs, is part of the point; that this is what it feels like to be alone, to be grasping, to be all the facets of what you are and others don't see. Possibly the most emblematic poem of the whole collection - in form, in themes, and in the way it talks about the philosophy of the poems themselves - might be "Salt," page 56:
Nothing is unrelated. Moving from idea to idea, image to image, mood to mood, makes sense in its own way. But so many of the poems were strings of such lines, making the collection feel... kind of same-y. Emotionally powerful and artistically okay.
There were some that I found well-constructed and liked a lot - "It Was Supposed To Rain" was good, using the kind of repetition I got used to in Tohono O'odham poetry to strong effect. "Another Body" and "It is Important To Be Something" I liked a lot. And there were some that were direct and obvious what they were about - "Poem (Let Us Live)," "A Guide to Reading Trans Literature", "The Moon is Trans," and "On Being Outed to My Family" are uncompromising about what they're about, bitter and sad, and they stick in my mind more than the more airy more disconnected more image-ful more "poetic" ones. Espinoza is undeniably great at vivid, brilliant lines that turn around in your head and conjure up unexpected, powerful images - she'd do wonders in haiku and microfiction. But despite the power of its emotions and feeling, the very real depth of that, the book felt like a handful of artistic gems in a sea of the same poem over and over. Though many books of poetry feel that way tbh.
The emotion was deep and real and raw. This is about being a woman, about being trans, about being a trans woman. About womanhood, about trans womanhood and the way it alienates trans women from the rest of the world, about being in your body, depression and isolation and distance and the expanse of the world and the sky. About sadness and wanting to be loved and wanting to die and wanting to live and silencing yourself, knowing who you are even as the rest of the world does not. The feelings it evoked were deep and real; the directness of the language, the loneliness and floatiness of it, evoked it very well. And maybe that brokenness, that disconnection, that string of non-sequiturs, is part of the point; that this is what it feels like to be alone, to be grasping, to be all the facets of what you are and others don't see. Possibly the most emblematic poem of the whole collection - in form, in themes, and in the way it talks about the philosophy of the poems themselves - might be "Salt," page 56:
When I thought of my body I saw a desert
covered in teeth marks.
I've had to let go of so many things
to get here.
The first time I called myself a girl
was when you called me a girl.
Nothing is unrelated.
Even the way I move from bedroom to kitchen
and from calm to panicked
makes sense in its own way.
You ask me for my name
and I dip my body in blue nail polish
and roll across the sidewalk.
It is warm
and I think about how birth and death
have become confused in my mind.
I know where I come from.
You don't need to remind me.
I've covered it all in salt
so I'll never forget.
Nothing is unrelated. Moving from idea to idea, image to image, mood to mood, makes sense in its own way. But so many of the poems were strings of such lines, making the collection feel... kind of same-y. Emotionally powerful and artistically okay.
There were some that I found well-constructed and liked a lot - "It Was Supposed To Rain" was good, using the kind of repetition I got used to in Tohono O'odham poetry to strong effect. "Another Body" and "It is Important To Be Something" I liked a lot. And there were some that were direct and obvious what they were about - "Poem (Let Us Live)," "A Guide to Reading Trans Literature", "The Moon is Trans," and "On Being Outed to My Family" are uncompromising about what they're about, bitter and sad, and they stick in my mind more than the more airy more disconnected more image-ful more "poetic" ones. Espinoza is undeniably great at vivid, brilliant lines that turn around in your head and conjure up unexpected, powerful images - she'd do wonders in haiku and microfiction. But despite the power of its emotions and feeling, the very real depth of that, the book felt like a handful of artistic gems in a sea of the same poem over and over. Though many books of poetry feel that way tbh.
September 10, 2020
All these movie moments and hand cutting wind in half dreams come for me as if sent by some light that wants to watch me survive.
There should be awards given out for things like showering, going to the grocery store, and breathing, but no one cares. I care. Lots of people care but ultimately no one cares.
All that womanhood caught in the roof of my mouth was like honey.
I don't know how to tell you this but I'm ten leaves floating in a pool of rainwater that you hop over on your way to work every day.
There are trees outside my window filled with dozens of hummingbirds. I want to offer them the sugar from my tongue because they would never think to ask for it.
I'm no longer interested in suffering as entertainment meaning I'm no longer interested in entertainment or suffering.
I can get through anything if I change the shape of it enough.
Outside in the dirt I measure suffering and make a choice.
Soon I will turn 28. I am approaching the sky. Every birthday after 30 will feel like a statistical anomaly because it literally will be. It's okay to feel what is true in your hands and in your teeth. It doesn't have to heal you or set you free. It just has to remind you that you exist. I hardly exist and it's fine.
Bookend my body with all your rain until I grow into something better.
There should be awards given out for things like showering, going to the grocery store, and breathing, but no one cares. I care. Lots of people care but ultimately no one cares.
All that womanhood caught in the roof of my mouth was like honey.
I don't know how to tell you this but I'm ten leaves floating in a pool of rainwater that you hop over on your way to work every day.
There are trees outside my window filled with dozens of hummingbirds. I want to offer them the sugar from my tongue because they would never think to ask for it.
I'm no longer interested in suffering as entertainment meaning I'm no longer interested in entertainment or suffering.
I can get through anything if I change the shape of it enough.
Outside in the dirt I measure suffering and make a choice.
Soon I will turn 28. I am approaching the sky. Every birthday after 30 will feel like a statistical anomaly because it literally will be. It's okay to feel what is true in your hands and in your teeth. It doesn't have to heal you or set you free. It just has to remind you that you exist. I hardly exist and it's fine.
Bookend my body with all your rain until I grow into something better.
October 16, 2021
I wholeheartedly agree with the message in these poems, but I hate to admit that the poetry itself didn't really appeal to me. It was frequently quite repetitive, and seemed almost navel-gaze-y. The problem with writing a book of poems about one thing is that it's extremely hard to do without just ending up saying the same thing a million times with slight variations, and I just got tired of the same thing. She's writing about really important things, and there's enough in that experience to fill many books, but I wish there was more substance here. Most of the poems just kind of hovered over the topic, where I really wanted more concrete stories. They linger in more abstract imagery, but not because abstraction was the end goal--it was more like it was there as an attempted shorthand for the very real emotions and experiences. I wish there were fewer trees and birds and far less of the word "breathe/breath/breathing" and more actual substance. There's a lot to be said about this topic--I just don't think she actually said that much of it.
September 21, 2021
4 stars
I want to acknowledge, I am a cis white female. I do not think this poetry collection was meant for me...or maybe it was? Maybe the idea is to spread these beautiful heartbreaking poems to those who can't relate in order to create more understanding around the trans experience. Espinoza's pain and deep need to be heard are so evident and I am glad to add another set of eyes to this significant work.
No matter who this work is meant for, these poems were moving. They were brutal at times. I want to go back through and mark my favorites and highlight the words that hit on a nerve and made me feel.
I didn't give this 5 stars because the repetition of certain words and ideas in this collection didn't impact me so much as it drew me out of the experience. I'm not someone who is super knowledgeable about poetry, but I don't think I enjoy the mention of nature in poems. The author calls on horses, birds, sand, rain, etc. And while some of this imagery impacted me, some of it didn't quite register.
I want to acknowledge, I am a cis white female. I do not think this poetry collection was meant for me...or maybe it was? Maybe the idea is to spread these beautiful heartbreaking poems to those who can't relate in order to create more understanding around the trans experience. Espinoza's pain and deep need to be heard are so evident and I am glad to add another set of eyes to this significant work.
No matter who this work is meant for, these poems were moving. They were brutal at times. I want to go back through and mark my favorites and highlight the words that hit on a nerve and made me feel.
I didn't give this 5 stars because the repetition of certain words and ideas in this collection didn't impact me so much as it drew me out of the experience. I'm not someone who is super knowledgeable about poetry, but I don't think I enjoy the mention of nature in poems. The author calls on horses, birds, sand, rain, etc. And while some of this imagery impacted me, some of it didn't quite register.
May 25, 2017
My #bookfren sent me There Should Be Flowers by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza for our poetry box in April. It is a beautiful and moving book of poetry by a trans woman poet, an own voices tale of transness, depression, and panic attacks full of birds in the mouth and flowers trying to grow. It is a tale of self-preservation and survival told in sweet yet straightforward lines. The skill of Espinoza’s poetry is astonishing, each word and poem carefully crafted yet heavy with emotional depth. “I Don’t Know How to Tell You This,” “No Man,” “There Must Be Someplace,” all punched me in the teeth. “Poets Are All Comparing Themselves to Birds,” “This is a Poem About Wishing,” and “The Sunset is so Beautiful” pulled at my depression and anxiety, drew it to the front, and wrecked me. I recommend this poetry collection as highly as I can.
October 25, 2020
I picked up a free copy of this book from my library as part of a local literary non-profits efforts to promote trans authors of color in the region. I wasn't sure I was going to like this, but it turned out to be a great collection. Reading through this reminded me of The Princess Saves Herself in This One in its openness and vulnerability. Ms. Espinoza does a fabulous job of probing her transition from male to female, her self-identity and body, and her plea for understanding from a world that doesn't fully understand trans people. I highly recommend this book if you're a fan of poetry, especially to any trans readers out there.
August 16, 2024
I'm trying not to give a shit / but it doesn't fit well on me.
There should be more to life / than disruption / and survival / but there isn't.
There should be parties / to celebrate / the end of this world. / There should be flowers / to welcome / a new one.
I wake up every morning and say "Thank god" / even though I'm no longer sure / she actually exists.
I'm no longer interested in suffering as entertainment / meaning I'm no longer interested in entertainment / or suffering.
How long can I. keep tricking you / into thinking what I'm doing / is poetry / and not me begging you / to let us live?
First there was nothing / Then god created a man and immediately she said, / "I've made a huge mistake" / It's okay god / I make mistakes all the time
Learning to love myself takes forever / and it never ends.
There should be more to life / than disruption / and survival / but there isn't.
There should be parties / to celebrate / the end of this world. / There should be flowers / to welcome / a new one.
I wake up every morning and say "Thank god" / even though I'm no longer sure / she actually exists.
I'm no longer interested in suffering as entertainment / meaning I'm no longer interested in entertainment / or suffering.
How long can I. keep tricking you / into thinking what I'm doing / is poetry / and not me begging you / to let us live?
First there was nothing / Then god created a man and immediately she said, / "I've made a huge mistake" / It's okay god / I make mistakes all the time
Learning to love myself takes forever / and it never ends.
February 22, 2024
j. jennifer espinoza's poetry hits hard. it touches on the experience of being trans in a hostile world, experiences of grief, anger, frustration, and exhaustion. there is trauma in these poems, but there is also triumph, victory, and a sense of having overcome. many of these poems, many of these stanzas, many couplets and individual lines have rung throughout my head for the past several years, repeated whispers of truth wrapped in metaphor.
perhaps the most poignant are the closing lines of "poem (let us live):"
how long can i keep tricking you
into thinking what i'm doing
is poetry
and not me begging you
to let us live?
that sums up the spirit of the entire collection better than i ever could.
perhaps the most poignant are the closing lines of "poem (let us live):"
how long can i keep tricking you
into thinking what i'm doing
is poetry
and not me begging you
to let us live?
that sums up the spirit of the entire collection better than i ever could.
March 1, 2020
I don't often read poetry (actually had to add a new bookshelf for it on here), but I am happy to sing praises for this book. Espinoza's use of language is truly exquisite. It felt like there was a new phrase in every poem that I would be willing to tattoo to my body. This book was moving, and while it made me laugh out loud, it was more likely to leave me in deep, sad contemplation. I would recommend this to anyone who likes or wants to like poetry and isn't afraid to contend with imminent mortality in this cisheteropartriarchal planet.
"I know where I come from. / You don't need to remind me. / I've covered it all in salt / so I'll never forget."
S/o to Bea for the recommendation.
"I know where I come from. / You don't need to remind me. / I've covered it all in salt / so I'll never forget."
S/o to Bea for the recommendation.
December 7, 2019
Sooooo good! I don't really read much poetry. I feel like if I did I'd be more used to different kinds of flow and get even more out of this book of poetry, but there were so many lines which made me laugh or cry or sigh! As a woman of trans experience myself, I really did enjoy reading poems by another woman of trans experience! Definitely worth checking out and so thankful for the recommendation to check out this poetess!
November 6, 2023
Favorites - It Is Important To Be Something, I Don’t Know How To Tell You This, The Public Reaches, Soft Hell, Wind Poem #2, Nature, In The Men’s Group, You Are A Tree In Yourself, This Sunset Is So Beautiful, No Man, It Was Supposed To Rain, Poem (Let Us Live), Loving A Trans Woman, Meaningness, On Being Outed To My Family .. so basically almost every poem in the book. But damn. What a beyond words moving and powerful collection.
April 19, 2024
Flowers #1 and #2 reiterate the common themes in the collection and act as a heavy hammer against a nail already deep into the wood. This could be said about the entire collection as well, but there a few narrative poems, such as "In the Men's Group" and "On Being Outed to my Family," that stood out as gems in this collection that I, as a cis-gender woman and asexual, could relate to. I would recommend this to those who struggle with their gender-identity and body.
October 30, 2017
a really unique voice, beautiful language, powerful poems. espinoza stretches between the timeless, infinite world of death, nature, the body, and relationships and the urgent, present world of transmisogyny, dysmorphia, technology, gender and power relations. poems about survival that form a praxis for continuing to live and feel, despite everything.
November 9, 2019
Amazing. I have no words.
A quote from "Poem (Let Us Live)": "How long can I keep tricking you/ into thinking what I'm doing/ is poetry/ and not me begging you/ to let us live?"
Just a title of another poem: "A Guide to Reading Trans Literature".
A lot of beauty, feelings, trees, flowers. Loved it.
A quote from "Poem (Let Us Live)": "How long can I keep tricking you/ into thinking what I'm doing/ is poetry/ and not me begging you/ to let us live?"
Just a title of another poem: "A Guide to Reading Trans Literature".
A lot of beauty, feelings, trees, flowers. Loved it.
April 17, 2020
Oh. So many of these. I wanted to take pictures of whole poems and post them to share, quote lines. Such spare language and how devastating and beautiful in its precision and evocation.
These poems made me think of my own experience, of a life spent dreaming years away, and I see some of that in here too. And endurance in spades.
These poems made me think of my own experience, of a life spent dreaming years away, and I see some of that in here too. And endurance in spades.
January 11, 2023
This is an absolutely incredible poetry collection. I am not one who reads poetry that often but I think what I need to be reading are things like this. It was heartbreaking, beautiful, and containing multitudes. There were many poems that I would read and reread and get impacted by something I hadn't noticed the first time.
April 27, 2018
'I always want to say "who cares"/ when I mean to say "I care".' With sincerity and elegance, Joshua Jennifer Espinoza places the reader inside a transgender person's experience. Vivid and utterly compelling.
September 22, 2021
so insanely repetitive, beautiful analogies for the first 10 pages and then i’m just like dear god. she’s a beautiful writer, and clearly has a story to tell. i just wish she wrote more from the heart and less from the constraint of poetry brought to us by rupi kaur
December 25, 2021
I was drawn to this poetry collection by the following sentence: "This complex trauma only responds to the dialectical."
Espinoza really gets it, she really describes what it is like to live in a body that doesn't feel like yours, the struggle to keep going, and hopelessness you can feel.
Espinoza really gets it, she really describes what it is like to live in a body that doesn't feel like yours, the struggle to keep going, and hopelessness you can feel.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews