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A review by diannastarr
Please Make Me Pretty, I Don't Want to Die: Poems by Tawanda Mulalu
emotional
inspiring
slow-paced
5.0
For starters, I started and finished Please Make Me Pretty, I Don't Want to Die while waiting for a date.
Honestly, once I got the "on my way" message 20 minutes in I ended up staying a whole lot longer than I should have. But conveniently enough we were meeting at a bookstore and I figured that if I was already there I'd might as well make the most of my time instead of staring at the door and twiddling my thumbs.
I hunkered down in a far corner, found it on one of the display, and I definitely judged a book by it's cover. The whole reason why I picked it out was because I thought that the painting looked really interesting, but I've never been much of a poetry person. I've read poetry before and I think that everybody has at some point in their lives, but I never understood the desire that some people felt in going out of their way to purchase poetry, to have it in their personal libraries. To be frank, the only poetry that I've ever bought my own physical possession is Bloom for Yourself by April Green, but even still an old friend was the one who told me to get it. Upon further reflection, all of the poetry that I've ever picked up was either another person's recommendation, something that I was assigned to analyze for class, something that I saw online that another person insisted was a "must read." But Tawala Mulalu's debut was nowhere on my radar and yet it ended up as the highlight of my evening.
Every single page was a sucker punch in ways I can't quite put into words. Prayer, Elegy, The World, Song, Near It - hell, even Hamlet Tries Prozac were all brief but profound anthologies on the loneliness that comes with being a woman in the modern era. It focused on the longing to be beautiful, to be desirable and seen and yet invisible at the same time, the intimacy that comes with loathing yourself and the terrible feeling in your gut that comes with being with a person you don't yearn in the same way anymore. In a way, I felt like it was Sunday evening and I was a little girl going through the motions at mass again. Standing, kneeling, sitting, watching person behind the pulpit peeling me skeletal - but only this time it was in all of the best ways.
Honestly, once I got the "on my way" message 20 minutes in I ended up staying a whole lot longer than I should have. But conveniently enough we were meeting at a bookstore and I figured that if I was already there I'd might as well make the most of my time instead of staring at the door and twiddling my thumbs.
I hunkered down in a far corner, found it on one of the display, and I definitely judged a book by it's cover. The whole reason why I picked it out was because I thought that the painting looked really interesting, but I've never been much of a poetry person. I've read poetry before and I think that everybody has at some point in their lives, but I never understood the desire that some people felt in going out of their way to purchase poetry, to have it in their personal libraries. To be frank, the only poetry that I've ever bought my own physical possession is Bloom for Yourself by April Green, but even still an old friend was the one who told me to get it. Upon further reflection, all of the poetry that I've ever picked up was either another person's recommendation, something that I was assigned to analyze for class, something that I saw online that another person insisted was a "must read." But Tawala Mulalu's debut was nowhere on my radar and yet it ended up as the highlight of my evening.
Every single page was a sucker punch in ways I can't quite put into words. Prayer, Elegy, The World, Song, Near It - hell, even Hamlet Tries Prozac were all brief but profound anthologies on the loneliness that comes with being a woman in the modern era. It focused on the longing to be beautiful, to be desirable and seen and yet invisible at the same time, the intimacy that comes with loathing yourself and the terrible feeling in your gut that comes with being with a person you don't yearn in the same way anymore. In a way, I felt like it was Sunday evening and I was a little girl going through the motions at mass again. Standing, kneeling, sitting, watching person behind the pulpit peeling me skeletal - but only this time it was in all of the best ways.