You Don’t Have to Go to Mars for Love

by Yona Harvey

The poems of award-winning poet Yona Harvey’s much anticipated You Don’t Have to Go to Mars for Love follow an unnamed protagonist on her multidimensional, Afro-futuristic journey. Her story stretches the boundaries normally constraining a black, female body like hers. Half-superhero, half-secret-identity, she encounters side-slipping, speculative realities testing her in poems that appear like the panels of a comic book. Music directs readers through large and small emotional arcs, constantly retroubled by lyric experimentation. Harvey layers her poems with a chorus of women’s voices. Her artful use of refrain emphasizes the protagonist’s meaning making and doubling back: “Who am I to say? The eye is often mistaken. Or is it the mind? Always eager to interpret.” Our hero is captured, escapes, scuba dives, goes interstellar, and she emerges on the other end of her journey renewed, invoking the gods: “taunt the sharks. & when the glaciers get to melting, / all God’s River’s we shall haunt.”

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published September 8, 2020

About the author

Yona Harvey is the author of the poetry collection, Hemming the Water, winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award from Claremont Graduate University and finalist for the Hurston-Wright Award. Her work has been anthologized in many publications including A Poet’s Craft: A Comprehensive Guide to Making and Sharing Your Poetry and The Force of What’s Possible: Accessibility and the Avant-Garde. She has received an Individual Artist grant in nonfiction from The Pittsburgh Foundation and participated in workshops and residencies at the inaugural Cave Canem retreat and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
She is an assistant professor in the Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh.

Reviews

[Tara Betts]

Yona is an amazing and imaginative poem. These poems meditate, grieve, and dream.

[Sian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read this book at least three times over. every time i am drawn to the variety of form in this new fictional world and how it beautifully emulates the subject of the poems. For example, “The Subject of Surrender” is littered with intentional blank spaces, which made it extremely interesting to read and hear read aloud.

My absolute favorite poem is “The Sonnet District.” It was one of the first poems that really showed me how modern poetry can take on a sillier tone and fully embody a magical realist world!! It’s genuinely so cool how she creates an actual escape hatch space on the page using couplets!! My friends have heard me rant about this a billion times but I can’t recommend the book and that poem enough.

[Lydia Weinberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an excellent book—Harvey’s use of form and appropriation of song lyrics and styles is masterfully done. Read it in one sitting because I didn’t want to put it down.

[Eliot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dense, easy, viscous, formally inventive, ancient, mythic, knowing lyrics.

Like reading poems in a whole new, more deeply layered language.

[Paola · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I forget how daytime gnaws us till evening if we linger too long in its jaws."

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

These poems are brilliant fire and maybe it's saying too much but I think Harvey is this generation's June Jordan, the way she can play with language and rhythm and jump between modern slang and current events.

Segregation Continuum
after Ella Baker & Glenn Lignon

layered in black on black on white canvas
we who believe in freedom cannot rest
looking at the way we look looking forward
stepping back by way of upturned neck by way
of three steps back looking black coded by way
of black modes by way of reconstruction by way
of insurrection by way of colored fountains by way
of elected democrats or elected aristocrats
it is obvious we are a presence
though we have been discomforted
at school gates at rental offices at museum entrances
even we cannot rest who believe in freedom
we are to some an irritant an ire some tire some lot
we do not subscribe just because something comes
out of a leader’s mouth out of the mouth of a tyrant
so we are too difficult we are much too difficult
we are much too aware we are much too marked
we are all that matter to us that matter
we are the most comforting presence by way of
nod by way of pound by way of sup
we are always fashionable when we do not try
we do not try to insult except when we do
but we do not hesitate to speak of the things
about which we agree or disagree we participate
at the level of our thinking by way of our thinking
by way of our mass expression
we who believe in freedom cannot rest
where once hundreds & even thousands of we
ordinary people had taken a position—that made us—
very uncomfortable when we decided for instance
to walk rather than take the bus

[K.K. Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Son, don't bring any spiders home. Or / lovers or trash talk."

"I see yall know what I'm talking bout when I say, sweet / sin & excess,"

"An apology-- / is not an eraser. Maybe a filling. A cover. For words spoken in haste."

"is that broth / in the bowl / or poison / she's warmed / for the one / who'll leave"

"She was not afraid. of breaking things. & that was key."

"You never wear cologne. You give / & you give & you give & you give. / & they take from you. That's their business."

"Turns out I'd been wooed by the red-wine / rhythms of inebriated verse scrawled on napkins & slipped across / the close-quartered dinner tables of out-of-the-way restaurants."

"You've climbed the overlook? I came here to die."

"Torrent, let's go. I'll meet you at the River's / Bottom, / dressed in silver scales with fin. You'll clutch my hand, / we'll swim in circles."

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poetry is hard for me, someone who primarily reads fiction or facts. Harvey's poetry is impactful, but somewhat stream-of- consciousness and deeply personal. That said, there was a lot I could relate to: motherhood, love, despair.... And, maybe you do have to go to Mars for love.

"Womanhood is a lost paradise
The slightest mistake
could bring disaster." (29)

[Wlongmire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely interesting music and urgency to the poems. I thought the use of punctuation and italics was really innovative. Deeply felt poems rooted in black experience, black women experience and familiar relationships of many kinds. I came out inspired. Highly recommend.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

The poet is distinctive and what she does with form is breathtaking. Her form is one of the best communicators of the content I’ve seen. Her words rise from the page and get ya…challenge me…embrace US. It’s a beautiful piece of work. I bought it new from Amazon this year.

[Azeezah Ladoja · Rating 3 out of 5]

“ Women good is a lost paradise
The slightest mistake could bring disaster

Down weekly in a snow bank
she slid into her own self “



This was my fave poem. Overall nice, but perhaps a tad too experimental for my level ⭐️

[Bill O'driscoll · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fine collection by the Pittsburgh-based poet and educator, with searching reflections on family, history, Black life and more.

[Ags · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really appreciated this collection having lots of forms across poems and sci-fi set-ups, paired with topics of motherhood/girlhood, divorce/marriage, and racism/violence targeted at Black Americans. The collection combines the forms/set-ups with the ideas/topics very thoughtfully. The first half in particular also has a really good meter. I liked the humor throughout.

I sort of felt like I lost steam in the second half; and, as interesting as all the forms were, I didn't understand some of the pacing or how some of the poems were meant to sound. Per usual, this is perhaps a poetry reading error on my part. Relatedly, I, literary loser, would have benefited from a notes section at the end that mentions/clarifies some of the references throughout. Alas. One day I will level up.