There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé in Around the Year in 52 Books

Feb 12, 2019 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was ok

Shelves: poetry, lotsa-buzz

The most powerful poem in this book is tucked in near the end of the collection:

99 Problems

1. Playing house I was adopted
2. or the dog
3. I understood
4. They made me the wild creek
between Class Clown & Most Unique
5. The chocolate ________
6. One afternoon the dog killed
a bird in our garage
7. He brought it to my feet
8. In the Bible every wing is real
9. I could be a witch
10. Dating
11. Dating
12. It is impossible to always be touching
13. Two-hundred-fiddy to unpack this
14. Sixty a bag

The most powerful poem in this book is tucked in near the end of the collection:

99 Problems

1. Playing house I was adopted
2. or the dog
3. I understood
4. They made me the wild creek
between Class Clown & Most Unique
5. The chocolate ________
6. One afternoon the dog killed
a bird in our garage
7. He brought it to my feet
8. In the Bible every wing is real
9. I could be a witch
10. Dating
11. Dating
12. It is impossible to always be touching
13. Two-hundred-fiddy to unpack this
14. Sixty a bag to heal
15. Inhale/heal
16. Oppression
17. Oppression
18. Oppression
19. Oppression
20. Defense
21. Teaching
22. Listening
23. Never knew him
24. Nana packed the slow car alone
25. Picked six honey-heads from school
26. Drove til the sky turned
27. a new state
28. I don’t know anything else
29. It doesn’t matter
30. I wake up not
sure I want to
31. I don’t know how to explain
every wish is an ice cube
I swallow whole
32. It is important for me to say I’m OK
33-35. Fucked a white boy
36-42. American History
43. Where are you from?
44. Prozac Weight
45. Thomas and I got pulled over
in Bed-Stuy last Saturday night
46. We were in the back of a cab
47. Taxes
48. The wilting planet
49. Sometimes I forget to take my pills
50. I do it on purpose
51. I can't feel anything
52. A clean body like a lake
I’m some shit bodies sunk into
53. Prison Industrial Complex
54. Nonprofit Industrial Complex
55. Marriage Industrial Complex
56. Landlords
57. "Nigger"
58. OKCupid
59. White Saviors
60. Karaoke
61. Limited cocktail shrimps
62-70. Please check all that apply: panic attacks
hopelessness decreased socialization guilt
general overwhelming stress suicide attempts
71. Are you OK?
72. Tyler Perry
73. Hangovers
74. The western concept of Time
75. Food deserts
76. James Franco
77. OK I drank too much
78. again
79. It is impossible to always be taking a lavender bath
80. Men at intersections
81. Men in smoky formations
82. Men in the waiting room
83. Men at Popeye’s
84. Men up my skirt
85. Mercury retrograde
86. My dog eats a lipstick
87. Subjectivity
88. No
89. Where are you from?
90. We lost the records
91. My real last name
92. Fitting in
93. Uninterested sex
94. Teacher called me Sheila
95. Sheila was the other black girl
96. Sheila hated me
97. What we mean by “come up”
98. Be strong
99. I’m tired

For the most part, reading this book is like being hit with an enormous gust of wind, surprising you, pummeling you, surrounding you, but afterward all you're left with is nothing; maybe some messed up hair, a stray leaf, a stray word still clinging to you. Like, wtf was that?? but not in a good way.

All They Want Is My Money My Pussy My Blood

I am free with the following conditions.

Give it up gimme gimme.

Okay so I’m Black in America right and I walk into a bar.

I drink a lot of wine and kiss a Black man on his beard.

I do whatever I want because I could die any minute.

I don’t mean YOLO I mean they are hunting me.

I know my pussy is real good because they said so.

I say to my friend I am broke as a joke.

I am Starvin’ Like Marvin Gaye.

I’m so hungry I could get it on.

There’s far too many of me dying.

The present is not so different.

Everybody looks like everybody I worked with.

Everybody looks like everybody I’ve kissed.

Men champion men and animals.

Everybody thinks I’m going to die.

At the museum I tell the school group about Black art.

I tell them the word contemporary.

I have a nose ring I forget about.

I have a brother and he is also Black.

I am a little modern to the fault.

I say this painting is contemporary like you and me.

They ask me about slavery. They say Martin Luther King.

At school they learned that Black people happened.

The present is not so different.

I’m looking into their Black faces.

They do not understand that they exist.

I’m Black in America and I walk

into a bar and drink a lot of wine, kiss a white man on his beard.

There is no indictment.

I could die any minute of depression.

I just want to have sex most of the time.

I just want my student loans to disappear.

I just want to understand my savings account.

What is happening to my five dollar one cent.

I am free with the following conditions.

What is happening to my brother.

What if I do something wrong.

My blood is so hot and wet right now.

I know they want it.

I do everything right just incase.

I don’t want to give away my money but here I am.

It’s so stupid I have to say here I am.

They like to be on top.

I am being set up.

I am a tree and some fruits are good and some are bad.

My daughter walked in while I was reading "Drake" and I read it aloud to her. She said it sounded like a collection of Drake lines, or at any rate things that Drake would say. I didn't pick up on that at all. Maybe these poems are more meaningful if you're familiar with today's pop culture. Maybe I missed a lot of references. I can say that my daughter stayed engaged through the full poem, which isn't something I can say for other poems I've read to her.

Untitled While Listening to Drake
That summer you only listened to
Versions of The Girl from Ipanema
Drank Vinho Verde and chopped cherry tomatoes like
You were an extra in a Mad Men vacation scene
You were gaining weight in your thighs
Ashamed to have sex or go to the beach
You couldn't see yourself
Blushing in the smoke
Sometimes it was so sunny you thought
You would die or even worse live to be old
And still collecting dogs like sunrises
Waking up thinking today is the day
Today is not the day
Isn't wine so wonderful more than men
Isn't the sun what you can't have
Because you have feelings you need to see a doctor
The doctor says you will never know the truth
She offers you all the tissues and hot tea you like
When you are finished ignoring her you go to dinner
You order bibimbap in the hot pot and gaze into fried egg
You’re listening to a friend and disappointed
The train ride home is long and cold
That summer the music was so perfect and incorrect
Throat filling with accidents
It was like you didn’t have power but were lifted
With large strange hands from one day to another
Meanwhile you were sleeping
You were so tired
What strange dreams and sweaty sheets
The disorientation of waking
The gloom of beign where you are meant to be
It’s how mice are trapped alone
Your idea of being in love only a sound