, said the shotgun to the head.

by Saul Williams

The greatest Americans

Have not been born yet

They are waiting quietly

For their past to die

please give blood

Here is the account of a man so ravished by a kiss that it distorts his highest and lowest frequencies of understanding into an Incongruent mean of babble and brilliance...

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Philosophy, Adult, African American, Literature, Contemporary

192 pages, Paperback

First published September 16, 2003

About the author

Saul Williams is an acclaimed American poet, musician, actor, and filmmaker whose work fuses raw political insight, lyrical intensity, and a bold disregard for genre boundaries. Widely recognized for his dynamic presence in both spoken word and alternative hip hop, Williams emerged in the mid-1990s as a vital voice in contemporary poetry before expanding into music, theater, film, and literature.
Born in Newburgh, New York, Williams studied acting and philosophy at Morehouse College and later earned an MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. It was in New York's vibrant poetry scene that he honed his distinctive voice—fusing personal narrative, political urgency, and rhythmic precision. His breakout came in 1996 when he was named Grand Slam Champion at the Nuyorican Poets Café. He soon co-wrote and starred in the film Slam (1998), a bold meditation on incarceration, art, and resistance. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and the Camera d’Or at Cannes, launching Williams into international prominence.
Williams has published several collections of poetry, including The Seventh Octave, Said the Shotgun to the Head, and The Dead Emcee Scrolls, which reflect his ability to merge the cadence of hip hop with spiritual and philosophical inquiry. His writing is known for its fierce social critique and experimental form, often pushing beyond traditional poetic boundaries to embrace typography, performance, and digital culture.
As a musician, Williams has created a genre-defying body of work that blends hip hop, punk, rock, electronic, and spoken word. His debut album Amethyst Rock Star (2001), produced by Rick Rubin, was followed by the critically acclaimed self-titled Saul Williams (2004). He collaborated with Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor on The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! (2007), a provocative, pay-what-you-want release that challenged music industry norms and addressed race, identity, and digital freedom. Later albums such as Volcanic Sunlight, MartyrLoserKing, and Encrypted & Vulnerable further showcased his global perspective and political urgency, incorporating influences from African rhythms, industrial noise, and cyberpunk aesthetics.
In theater, Williams originated the lead role in Holler If Ya Hear Me, the Broadway musical inspired by the lyrics of Tupac Shakur. As an actor, he has appeared in films like Today, Akilla’s Escape, and Neptune Frost—the latter of which he co-directed with Anisia Uzeyman. Neptune Frost premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and exemplifies Williams’ vision of “sonic fiction,” combining sci-fi, Afrofuturism, and social commentary in a deeply poetic cinematic language.
Williams is also known for his global activism, his commitment to nonconformity, and his exploration of identity. He describes himself as queer and has consistently used his platform to advocate for justice, equality, and creative freedom. His life and work reflect a boundary-crossing ethos, uniting the spiritual and the political, the poetic and the revolutionary.
Across all mediums, Saul Williams defies categorization. Whether through verse, film, or song, he invites audiences to question, to imagine, and to awaken. His artistry continues to inspire new generations of poets, musicians, and thinkers worldwide.

Reviews

[Whitney Atkinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy shit. I'm crying just typing this review even though I finished the book like 10 minutes ago. This is the book that reignited my love for poetry. Although only half this book made sense to me, and typically that would infuriate me, this was just absolutely GORGEOUS. Williams had me from page one, and in this book he criticized the patriarchy, war, religion, and this was generally just a roller coaster ride that brought me to tears. It was so raw and it was centered on a love story, but grew so much in these 182 pages. Highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend and i'm going to go read his other two poetry books that I own right now.

[Rowena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last night I was trying to decide which books to take with me to my parent's house for Christmas, picked up this book meaning to read a few lines, ended up reading the entire poetry collection in roughly an hour. I don't think I've ever read poetry quite like this before.

The introduction says that these poems are basically the nonsensical ramblings of a man after a kiss. There is a lot of passion in these poems, some sexual, but the poems are more than just about love. There's a lot of social commentary and activism in there, for example anti-war, pro-culture,patriarchy, anti-racism. Also the references to Langston Hughes and Jimi Hendrix gained Saul Williams some brownie points.

One thing that did make me cringe was his anti-religion stance. I'm not sure if he's against the idea of religion in general or just against the fact that people do use religion as an excuse to do evil. Obviously the last point is true but as a person with a faith, I'm not going to say that religion has to be bad, it really depends on the person and how they use it and interpret it.

I am very glad to own a copy of this book. I can tell I'm going to be re-reading it again and again.

[leynes · Rating 3 out of 5]

, said the shotgun to the head. is a very strange (people who are nicer than me would probably say: unique) and complex poem. I wanted to write this review for a couple of days now and I really struggled... I struggled because A) I feel like I haven't properly understood what Saul was trying to say, and B) I understood enough to be overwhelmed with what I want to discuss. Upon skimming some reviews here on Goodreads I am reassured, because I don't seem to be the only one with that problem.

oil slicked feathers, putrid stenched water-bed
"mother nature's a whore," said the shotgun to the head.
and it smelled like teen spirit
angst driven insecure
a country in puterty
a country at war

The first thing we should get out of the way is the confusing format of the poem, and yes my stress is on the singular (because I feel like a lot of people didn't get that) – this is not a poetry collection, this is one big ass poem narrated in 182 pages... this is stated on the cover btw, thank you very much (I swear I'm not always that salty). // One of my favorite lines: "nonetheless, SHE had allowed him to mispronounce her name, which had eventually let to her misinterpreting her own dreams."

So the format is very unique (*coughs* strange), because the design is not normal but a mixture of different fonts, font sizes, bold fonts, italics, random gaps on the pages etc. – a whole fucking lot is going on here, and honestly for the most part (especially in the first quarter of this poem) it seemed completely random. Towards the end I could sense some sort of logic, but I couldn't necessarily pinpoint the shift and why it then worked better for me. The other peculiarity about the format is the count down from 10 to 0 which structures the poem in 11 parts. This created a sort of suspense – that, unfortunately, collapsed without a big boom in the end. The last part was very anti-climatic to me. I was waiting for a big reveal and nothing happened – that was underwhelming!

I cannot
make your past disappear

only rabbits, my love,
only rabbits

Next off, let's tackle the language. I don't have much to add here. I said it before and I will say it again: Saul Williams has a way with words. He is a very talented artist and so this poem had a lot of quotable moments, phrases that will stay with me for a long time (I mean how could I forget: YOUR WEAPONS ARE PHALLIC / ALL OF THEM). Even though I preferred his earlier poetry collection She, I have to say that language-wise Saul improved in this poem. I marked a lot more quotes than before, and I really appreciated how straight-forward he was – at least at times – in regards to religious beliefs, racism, consumerism and the patriarchy.

Now we have to tackle the themes and messages of this collection. Uff. I'm not sure if I can do it, but I'll try my best. Towards the beginning of the poem Saul writes my path is now crystal clear. / i AM COME TO TELL YOU / SHE IS HERE. This entity, this SHE is present throughout the entire poem. I am not sure if SHE is supposed to be a religious entity – she is definitely a spiritual being/thing/whatever which people believe in or not, but I kinda felt that Saul was trying to communicate a bigger theme here (some of you might ask: what's bigger than God, huh? - *coughs* my penis).

Towards the end of this poem Saul accuses the Western world of worshipping a male god, and using religion as an excuse to do evil things – to participate in wars, to shoot your neighbor, to be a racist scumbag. This poem was written in 2003 – a time where politics and the general attitude where drastically changing in the United States due to 9/11 and its aftermath. Saul even references this horrifying act of terror, saying that they now "live in an old testament where there is a faith that does not burn, that turns kings into believers." Not gonna lie, I'm not really sure what that's supposed to mean, but I thought I mention it nonetheless. ;)

Social commentary and social criticism is also prevalent throughout the poem. Saul is brutually honest and calls out the bloody history of the United States and that certain circles still don't own up to the past (and present). He remains clear in his anti-war, anti-racism and anti-religion (at least in the context of worshipping this male God) stance. He says he hears voices of generals calling for ammunition, voices of presidents calling for arms (I'm looking at you, Bush), voices of women calling for help, but he doesn't hear the voice of God.

or is that his mighty voice?
your angry god
craving the sacrifice
of a virgin generation's
son degenerate

your holy books:
written in red ink
on burning sands
(...branded into necks, whipped into backs, forced inside of vaginas and anuses, crammed into mouts, rubbed into open sores...)

I especially appreciated that he called out the slaughter of indigenous people by referreing to America as the holy ground we walk on, purified by native blood . I fucking love that, man!

I also liked that he talked about the generational conflict when it comes to protest and changing the present. His outcry "for in many households wisdom no longer comes with age" really reminded me of the struggle that John fucking Lewis (<3) recounted in March, and that back in the 1950s and 60s the young Civil Rights leaders struggled to get their parents on board with their cause, because the older generation was afraid to get into trouble. Just like John Lewis, Saul wants us to get into good trouble. He says, we have to demand our families back, our rituals back, our cultures back, our language back – round of fucking applause!

Some people have criticized Saul for his anti-religious stance. Personally, I don't have a problem with that at all, because I'm not the biggest supporter of organized religion, but I would actually argue for Saul here and say that he is not necessarily against religion per se, just religion of the kind that is used to excuse wars, racism and evil propaganda. Nontheless, I really loved tidbits such as "I prayed, and then I threw up" - hate me all you want. ;) Or even better:

God has hair on her pussy
and waits with burning desire for you

this is no blasphemy you have erected
ancient penises in your capitols
and prayed in the name
of a father, a male child and a ghost

My favorite part of this poem was the conversation between the journalist and the maned character. The MC says that through his art he wants to attack the subconscious of the person who is consuming his art. He states that America is acting out the parts of age old scripts. And that maybe people have to act out these parts because they are written, but we can still find space to riff on what isn't written. Oh my, how I love that. So this is MC's (and thus Saul's) appeal "to the unwritten histories of the future." Hells bells!

Here's a little BEST OF of all the wonderful things Saul reflects in this poem: He stresses the important of words: "only through new words might new worlds be called into order". He says that we are taught to fear and hate, thus making it hard for us to love and embrace love. He says that those who do not know their history are bound to repeat it. The prize of freedom must be payed with the courage to stand alone.

I am honestly dazzled by the vast amount of truth that Saul knocks out as if it were nothing. And lastly:

what happens to a society when mystery is labeled as evil?

it yields an ever-connected chain of false labels and misinterpretations

the indigenous are labeled as savage terrorist and plotted against
the open-hearted are manipulated into slavery
the vulnerable are penetrated by force of law
[…]
why do you pledge with a covered heart when it needs be opened?

Oh man, through writing this review I fell in love with this piece of art and Saul as a person all over again. This man is such a gift to the world. I will treasure him and his words for a long, long time. His words are highly re-readable, so I'm definitely looking forward to that... but I'm also excited to check out his newer stuff such as US. My love and respect goes out to this man. <3 //

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Said the shotgun to the head is genius. Just pure genius. I don't know where that man got his talent, but I'd so love to just pick his brain. He's so good he makes me want to be better at everything i do!I want to be as good at anything as he is at writing poetry!I will never stop looking for that thing, and when I find it my life will be worthwhile even if I never make a dime. I cant love him or this book more, it will never leave me.

[Zachary Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-reading Saul Williams works has proven enriching. There are things I didn't pick up on when I read his poetry as a young man. , said the shotgun to the head in particular seems to be an attack on the ills of capitalism and the violence of a patriarchal system. The poem is full of double entendres and ambiguous imagery that seem to beg for multiple readings. As always, Williams references pop culture and his heritage, but this time around I understood many more of the references. I definitely recommend reading , said the shotgun to the head aloud. It is a much more pleasurable experience, that way. It doesn't hurt to look up Saul Williams reading his work to get an idea of the flow and emphasis of the poem. It's almost percussive in places.

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saul Williams, , said the shotgun to the head (Pocket/MTV, 2003)

I have had people comment that they sometimes can't tell the difference between what I consider good poetry and what I don't. To me, it's as simple as can be 99.9% of the time: good poetry deals with the “person, place, or thing” section of the category of nouns. Bad poetry, almost invariable, deals with the “idea” section. T. S. Eliot started out Book 5 of his long poem Paterson with the injunction “No ideas but in things.” It is a retelling of the golden rule of poetry: “show, don't tell.” What most bad poets don't realize is that it is almost impossible to directly show an idea. It is easy to show an idea through things, as long as you're willing to accept the ambiguity inherent in that idea. Many poets are not willing to do so, for fear that either (a) the reader won't get it, or (b) the reader won't interpret it correctly. Either way, folks, bad poets are talking down to you.

I tell you all this at the beginning of this review because I have not recently encountered a book of poetry where both sides of the equation are so well-defined as they are in , said the shotgun to the head, the third book by slam champion Saul Williams. I figured going into this that I was going to be getting a book of bad “poetry”, as usually defined by the slam community, where how you perform the poem and how naked your message is are more important by far than whether you've crafted a good poem or not. A quick flip through before I began reading strengthened this impression, with lots of indentation, font changes, different sizes, black pages... this is exactly the kind of stuff I expect from someone who uses this sort of trickery to disguise the fact that he simply can't write. Then I read the first three sections, and I was blown away. “from now on/cities/will be built/on one side/of the street//so that soothsayers/will have wilderness to wander/and lovers/space enough/to contemplate a kiss” (29-30). Concrete images that convey feelings. That's exactly the type of thing I'm talking about. The language is a bit looser than I usually like, but Williams has the concept of how to write damn good poetry down pat, and he does a fantastic job of realizing it in these first three sections.

The inevitable political sections crop up, despite this being a love poem, and for a while there he manages to keep it up (viz. this gem from p. 56: “where is that voice from nowhere/to remind us/that the holy ground we walk on/purified by native blood/has rooted trees/whose fallen leaves/now color code/a sacred list of demands?”), but as the vast majority of political poets are wont to do, he gets to a point where he no longer seems to trust the reader to get the point unless he spells it out for us in three-foot-high red neon and brands it into our foreheads (given all the fontastic trickery in this book, I'm sure I'd mean that literally if he could have figured out a way to do so), as in: “we are exiting your colosseum/and encircling your box office/demanding our families back/our rituals back/our cultures back/our languages back/and our gods” (68). I'll certainly give praise where prise is due that Williams at least realizes that if you must do this thing, at least you should try to go from concrete to vague, and in that respect it's better than 99% of the political poetry that I've read, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

That said, while the political runs throughout this piece, it's usually enmeshed in the concrete images and language that mark the first section I quoted, and overall the book's good points outweigh its bad pretty strongly. It's that rare example of slam poetry that manages, at times, to bridge the gap between performance poetry and art, and it's worth checking out. ***

[Carla · Rating 5 out of 5]

This blew my mind.
I was at a local bookshop, with a friend, on a blustery day, in December. We both grabbed the book at the same time, and sat there on the floor, flipping page to page, reading it together.
It is Lovely. It is shockingly laid out, at times hard to see, for it overwhelms you. Other times, you feel like you can't seem to get enough, so that you wish to climb into the words themselves.

[Zac · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been meaning to read this one for a long time. I went in with high expectations and they were blown right out of the fucking water.

I'm going to have to read it again (and again) to make sense of it, but holy fuck. I can't even fully explain why this poem effected me so much. It's bizarre, but much of Saul's words resonated with me very deeply.

I knew I was gonna love it as soon as I read the line: "note: books are carefully folded forests"

Some more of my favourite lines:
"Rivers like oceans, oceans like answers, questions in cloud forms, raindrops in stanzas"
"she kissed as if she, alone, could forge the signature of the sun"
"a truth that mushrooms it's darkened cloud over the rest of us so that we bear witness to the short-lived fate of a civilization that worships a male god"
"Oil slicked feathers, putrid stenched water-bed, "mother nature's a whore," said the shotgun to the head"
"I have seen the moon in a sun dress. The ocean beneath her, rippling in laughter at the sight of a lone man who learned to walk on water for a glimpse of his truth in her crater"
"I surrendered my beliefs and found myself at the tree of life injecting my story into the veins of the leaves only to find that stories like forests are subject to seasons"
"she is a distorted horn solo fingered by the hand of a master, time's signature has done no more than punctuate her curvature"

Like, goddamn, something about the way he words things fucking blows me away.

Excellent read. Will be revisiting very shortly.

[✰ Alexandra ✰ · Rating 5 out of 5]

what the heck so relevant. didn't know how badly I needed this in my life until now.

[Lyndsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

DAMN.

Okay, I really think I need to read this one more time before I definitively settle on a rating. But it honestly feels like a 5-star read. Which is crazy to me because it's a POEM! My least favorite type of thing to read might end up being one of my favorite reads of 2018.

Built on a foundation of love and relationships, , said the shotgun to the head. is an emotional poem tackling topics such as the state of the United States, the patriarchy, religion, gun violence, women's rights, and so much more. It packed such a punch for me and I was just reading it going "yes Yes YES" over and over.

I really loved this and I'm so glad I gave it a shot. This is something that will stick with me for a very long time and will likely find itself a spot on my Top Books of 2018.

Read for the 7 in 7 Readathon 2018

[Ylenia]

Not even half of this made sense to me so I'm not going to rate it.
All I can say is that I saw a lot of potential and interesting topics (not only love but also social commentary and political stuff), but the format just didn't work for me.
I already knew either I was going to love this or don't get it but I wanted to try it anyway.
I marked some interesting pages and parts, but everything else... nope.

[Dereck · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read it a couple of times, and it seems different every time.
It's a bit Allen Ginsberg, a bit E.E. Cummings, a bit Hollywood, a bit blues, and bit hatred, a bit love, and a bit paprika. It's artsy and lively. The type is unique, anbd you really get the true feeling of the words. You can hear the voice of the poem as if you were at a concert and stereo hi-fi. It's amazing. Read it OUT LOUD.

[Whitney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Williams is a master wordsmith. His imagery is amazing and I find his poetry extremely poignant. You can feel the emotional grunt work he put into crafting this book. This is one of my favorite books of poetry.

[Marko Suomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kovan sykkeen runokirja, kiihkeä rytmi ja fiilis kuin kuuntelisi lausujaa/laulajaa jossain ison kaupungin taustahälinässä. Tykkäsin levottomuudesta!

[Chanel Chapters · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5
Feminist street prophet who loves a good pash

[sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was confused yet entranced the whole way through. A must for everyone, but be ready to bask in the not knowing.

[Colin Miller · Rating 1 out of 5]

Saul Williams is a hip hop artist, actor, writer and slam poet apparently best experienced live. If that’s the case, his poetry collection, ,said the shotgun to the head., is the equivalent of canned laughter.

,said the shotgun to the head. is one big poem broken into numbered sections counting down from 10. Williams starts his pretentiousness in the introduction, stating his belief in a female god because of a passionate kiss (a kiss that inspired the book). Williams basically writes through his feelings, but apparently doesn’t go back and edit with his mind. Instead, he has graphic designers use different font types, styles, sizes and backgrounds. I’m all for this type of endeavor when it succeeds—like in the visual edition of Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing About Grace?—but the visuals better help the words on the page, and, in this case, simply tweaking the font comes off as nothing more than a pretty distraction. To me, ,said the shotgun to the head. just looks like far too much style over way too little substance. I’m sure Saul Williams could tell you the importance of capitalizing the ‘i’ on one page and not on another, but I don’t much care.

I’d be willing to run with the premise laid out in the introduction if it actually went through the depths Williams initially spoke of, but nah, let’s make it about phallic weapons smashing into metaphorical female body parts (the cliché womb, vulva, etc.). Ooh, and make it angry! Like Rage Against the Machine-influenced poetry written by a 14-year-old. Sprinkle with pop culture references and call it a book. By the end (see page 175), I was laughing at what Williams accused children of inheriting from their fathers: murder! This was, of course, bolded in a font three times larger than the previous statements. (I’m going to guess my laughter was not the response William wanted.) Even with all I can balk at in the collection, Williams occasionally still has his quotable moments—pages 25, 61, 67, 70, 78 and 171—but overall, his emotion isn’t inked out in a way that translates to the reader, not even with all his graphic designer support. One star.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly epic poem both in content and in quality. Saul Williams really delivers the goods in this nigh novel length poem that centers around a world changing kiss. This poem is a mind melding and explosive look at the world we live in, and a call to change the world for the better. Ultimately it delivers on all counts that a great poem should, vivid imagery, captivating juxtapositions, amazing metrics, and an amazing rhythm- it truly does not miss a beat! Once you pick it up ",said the Shotgun to the Head." you will not want to put it down, and it will stay with you long after you finally put it down.

[Kenya Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!!!


"menstrual minstrels
footing your own bill
of right left right
marching blindly
into moonless night
another dimension
where children use chalk
on the sidewalk
tracing their bodies
for the precriminal investigation
of their paternal inheritance:
murder!"

[Clancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is vital. And while I am too young to truly remember what it was like in the immediate aftermath of September 11, and the years that followed (in which this poem came about), but I feel like it has only have grown more so over time.

, said the shotgun to the head. is a panacea for, and an antithetical statement against, the various perceptions of otherness and difference that increasingly divide us; as well as the egotist doomsday-ers whose various worlds are constantly in peril from these others.

This is perfect-bound love. Not 2a.m. sweet nothing love, not grandma's love of gratitude, but more like the stern, angry, disbelieving love of your mother when you roll in drunk and high and covered in hickeys at 2 in the morning on a school night at 16. Both depthless, and depthlessly livid.

Seek it out and put it in your brain already.

Shout-out to Blackalicious for having the balls to include a 5-minute beat poem on a 2002 hip-hop album and indirectly leading me to find this work.

[kubby]

i have mixed feelings, mostly that a lot of what is said in this poem is a message that has existed forever and is still a message unaware in the mass consciousness. and so now a dude says it and i hope it will be taken more seriously by reaching an audience that may not typically veer toward this thinking--as this book was also helped put out by mtv, which is also a strange concept to me, but whatever works to get something out to get the folk thinking is a good move.
the poem is pro goddess-earth-love and anti male god-phallic war. i like his play with words. one of my favorites was how mater means mother and that it is a material world and how can one be patriotic (pater) when it just leads to so much destruction.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant. I have seen him live and even without music he has enough charisma to fill a room with expectation and hold rapt their attention. What an amazing wordsmith for I refuse to believe that he is anything less than a master craftsman who creates these words with a deliberate passion. I will never be able to say enough good about this book. At my work I have shared a few quotes from this book and people always ask me where it came from. He has the same power of words as renowned lyricist Bob Dylan, an uncanny way of saying what he means without coming out and saying it but leaving it up to you. Incredible. I would give it more stars if they were available.

[The Lazy Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

At once political, heretical and passionately romantic. Saul Williams creates a mythology for a Female God, and the mad prophet who proclaims her word on the streets after receiving a kiss. Style is short and distracted but remains appealing.

"you've worshipped
loopholes in a story
and war shipped
mythic men to glory

if in god's image
then your god's
a plastic surgeon

a tyrannic dictator

a coward behind a curtain
with a megaphone

an aging oil tycoon
on viagra
ramming his plow
into the earth
turning up disease
and disaster
out of an ever-drying womb

you will become her cyclical sacrament."

[Anastasia Alén · Rating 4 out of 5]

"can he be heard over the gunfire
the whizz of passing missles
the crash of buildings
the cries of chilren
the crack of bones
the shriek of sirens?
or is that his mighty voice?"

Honestly I did not expect to like these ramblings as much as I did. They were odd but I found myself turning one page after another. & the use of different fonts was interesting.

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saul Williams is by far the greatest performing-poet I have ever seen.

[dkaufman · Rating 4 out of 5]

very striking rhythm, fun but also impressive.

[Hubert · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating poetic rumination on American culture post 9/11. An indictment on our shallow modern values, lack of connection to the Earth, and patriarchal society.

[Tringa Berisha · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is for someone else to enjoy. Not for me.

[su☆ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Im not usually a poetry reader, I havent read poetry in a long time and never really gave it much of a thought.
This poem tho, this is a very stange poem, written in a very unique kinda way, which makes it easy to read and easier to get lost in, the whole time i felt like i was falling only to feel weirdly satisfying and disgusted and then feel understanding and confusion in the span of seconds.
I do feel like there were part where i didnt grasp what Saul Williams was trying to convey but other times i felt so deeply and truly understood that i couldn't take a breath.
Really just a rollercoaster that i will be getting on again and again in the future

[Ville Verkkapuro · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this in Finnish and English at the same time. The Finnish translator is my co-worker and he brought me these.
What a treat it was: reading two books at the same time. Especially this strong and beautiful one. There was beautiful wordplay, all along important topics of prefering matriarchy over patriary, love and criticism of war and the government of George W. Bush.
This had rhythm, reading this was hip hop.
A very nice experience.