April was National Poetry Month in the US so I tried to tag along but then a thing came up with Bookmarks. A thing I might not be able to talk about yet, and that plan went the same way as Dolly Parton on an icy floor – tits up.
But! But, I did read one collection of poems, ‘If My Body Could Speak’ by Blythe Baird. If that name sounds familiar you’ve probably come across her on YouTube. Her poem ‘When the Fat Girl Gets Skinny’ – this collection’s opener – has almost 3 millions views, making it one of the most popular videos on the Button Poetry channel. Not bad for someone who’s only 22, hmm?
A poetry collection of feminists themes, if you’ve glanced at the news recently you can guess why I’ve spent more time screaming internally than writing.
★ ★ ★ ★
If My Body Could Speak by Blythe Baird.
I have a complicated relationship with modern poetry. If you need some context, check out my review of ‘the witch doesn’t burn in this one’. I didn’t ‘get’ Milk and Honey, or the follow up collection. Am I just getting old? Are publishers prioritising Goodreads Choice Awards over Good editors? Or, is it just really hard to translate the rhythm and feeling of spoken word poetry into text?
Probably the latter. How can I be so certain? Because I frickin’ love Blythe Baird’s readings. Actually, on that note, if at any point you struggle with identifying a poem’s rhythm I would recommend googling whether there’s a video, or audio clip, of the poet performing the peice. No one can better articulate the flow of a poem than the one who wrote it.
If My Body Could Speak could come under the umbrella categorisation of feminist poetry but that almost seems like doing the work a disservice. Baird’s topics are deeply personal; sexuality and homophobia, body image and eating disorders, surviving sexual assault and rape culture. All feminist topics but laid out raw, and honest in their experience*. While a poem may appeal to a wider issue, and these may be the feelings of one woman, they speak to the reality shared by most women. Young or old, we’ve all bit our lips when we’ve wanted to shout, felt the pang of disappointment when a male friend is misogynistic, or cried over obstacles we were never meant to overcome. The reader can feel Baird in her work and it resonates like a tuning fork.
Due to the topics and style, comparisons might be drawn with amanda lovelace, and if you’ve previously enjoyed lovelace’s work do use that as a guide. I found, however, that Baird writes with a voice that is rich and vivid, that is accessible without pretension. Importantly for me, her poems take up space. The majority of the poems are one or two pages long, there are no pages of one or two lines that read like discarded song lyrics or Instagram stories. Something I found difficult to digest with other collections of modern poetry. Yes, there is a little awkward use of the tab and enter key trying to match the spoken rhythm but not at all to the point of being clumsy or unreadable. In fact I had a hard time putting the collection down.
Whether you’re here for the #MeToo relevancy or simple validation that, yes, someone out there too is frustrated with skirt length dress code violations, Blythe Baird’s second collection of poems is goldust. Brief, precious, and dammit if I don’t want more.
Get your copy of ‘If My Body Could Speak’ here.
Baird – pronounced bared? Bird? Bard? Appropriate that a poet would have a name that could have three meanings.
*trigger/content warnings as appropriate. While Baird is not explicitly graphic, the poems are distinct enough they could be upsetting for some, particularly in the case where Baird writes of sexual assault.
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I received my copy through NetGalley in exchange for a review, all opinions my own etc etc
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