Wolf Girls vs. Horse Girls

by Catherine Weiss

Are you over middle school yet? Are you sure? Catherine Weiss's debut full-length poetry collection asks, how does one recover from growing up a girl? Weiss playfully confronts desire, fatness, addiction, queerness, mental illness, family, trauma, and dinosaurs with shocking vulnerability and biting wit in this poignant collection about adolescence and after.

Catherine Weiss’s Wolf Girls Vs. Horse Girls is one of the most enjoyable poetry collections I’ve read in years. The key part of that pleasure comes from the poet’s ability to amuse and be amused about even the most devastating things… I can’t think of another voice quite like Catherine Weiss’s.
-Jason Koo, author of MAN ON EXTREMELY SMALL ISLAND

Wolf Girls Vs. Horse Girls is all ode and fervor, it’s earthy, it’s sharp. it’s your best friend whispering confessions on the night drive and then you say “wait me too” and then you both say “i thought i was the only one.”
-Jess Rizkallah, author of THE MAGIC MY BODY BECOMES

Weiss turns every boundary into an expanse; builds tools from the shadows of tools and grows a new sun out of them.
-Sam Rush, author of SWALLOW

In Wolf Girls Vs. Horse Girls we encounter a voice of singular charm, authenticity, and force. Mirroring the psychic pains of childhood and the adult’s search for a stable sense of self, these poems unmake and remake themselves on the page, seeking original forms to evoke the bewilderment of living and longing in a body.
-Jay Deshpande, author of LOVE THE STRANGER

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

Published June 22, 2021

Reviews

[A · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not usually a patroness of poetry, but the title of this collection was too good to pass up and I have been trying to read books outside of my niche lately. Anywho, that being said i’m not going to purport to be able to write an insightful review, BUT if you, like me, are looking for some poetry and you are not a poetess (or if you do like poetry!) i really enjoyed this. I am also at a weird crisis-about-aging point where retrospection really speaks to me. I loved the perspective, the cleverness, and the mixture of wrenching, relatable poetry and witty, delightful silly fun.

[Adam Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the last year, I've probably read dozen poetry collections that focus on childhood trauma or childhood incidents that set the poet's personality in motion. Often, the focus is on specific awkward situations that are easily to identify with. But I find that, in other collections, poems like this seem written from an immature perspective, as the authors seemed so trapped in the moment of the trauma that they overemphasize its importance and the result is a poem or series of poems that come across as childish or melodramatic.

That's never the case with Weiss's poems. Each moment is clearly an adult reflecting on something that felt important at the time, and shaped them into who they are, but who they are is someone who overcame that moment. The overcoming is not accompanied by an orchestral swell or a triumphantly raised fist. More of a slight nod and a loud exhale.

[M. Gaffney · Rating 5 out of 5]

So. Damn. Good.

[Lyd Havens · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a deeply singular book that is hilarious, charming, beautiful, absolutely heart-wrenching. Come for the incredible title, stay for the mind-blowing contrapuntals & the golden shovel that uses all the words to “All Star” by Smash Mouth.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's rare a book lives up to the hype of the back cover. I started tucking in the corners of pages that had a line or full poem or turn of phrase that smacked me good and hard, and found I'd have a book of cornerless pages so I had to cull my efforts. This is just a stunning, lovely coming of age book, with poems of both lyric and narrative quality, that manages to bring you back to the trauma of youth without retraumatizing you. 4 1/2 to 4 3/4 stars rounded up to five. Recommended for all of the gazed upon, judged, bullied, kicked down, namecalled, etc.

[River · Rating 5 out of 5]

You THOUGHT you’d moved on from middle school, huh? Ok this poetry collection was so fun and hard hitting! Great collection for if you grew up being a Weird Girl and not really knowing why. Highlights for me were Middle School Band poem, Nonbinosaurus Rex (a title that makes me cringe but also so much of being 12 is being cringe. You gotta embrace it at some point), Plurals, and Driving Around My Hometown.

[Jena Best · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't really care for poetry, though I do try to read poetry collections now and again. I was really drawn in by the premise of this one, and I think I enjoyed "Fervor" the most (?). Again - poetry has never been my thing, so I don't want to rate it poorly. But part of my reading journey is also to push myself to try new things, so I will keep testing the waters in my less-loved genres.

[November Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of these weren't my jam, as is the case with any poetry collection, but enough hit the mark that I spent most of my time emotionally laying on the floor staring blankly up at the ceiling feeling like someone had broken my kneecaps, so..

[Isabella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry that is painful, but good.

[blue · Rating 5 out of 5]

So so SO good

[Corban Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t read a lot of poetry but this hits.