
Bone
Reviews

Some lovely biting poems, though I was left wanting a bit more from the collection.

“They say women are gentler, treat each other better. Please. As if we never learned to eroticise our rage, to block out the screaming of the gut.”

In bone, Yrsa Daley-Ward writes a series of poems ranging across various themes of love, family, race, sex & sexuality, religion, dependency, and more. We get to meet different characters as we follow her narration of their stories and her own. Her poems reflect what we are afraid to say out loud - musings on how we love and how we hurt, tales about fractures in families, and spirals of self discovery. This is the first poetry collection I’ve read in full and what a way to start! From the sensual and beautiful to the detached and solemn, we follow the ties of each person and each poem as they all come to a realization that love is a complexity of holding multiple truths at once sometimes we get it and sometimes we just aren’t meant to hold on to it. “You will come away bruised but this will give you poetry.”

so raw and gutting

Fantastic collection of poems and prose. The prose interludes were the most captivating instances of Daley-Ward's unique magic. Highly recommend reading this!

una colección de poemas que te hace reflexionar ya que trata sobre diversos temas importantes como la religión, la homofobia, la transfobia, el racismo, el abuso sexual, entre otros. muy recomendable.

Blog | Twitter | Instagram | As a note, a physical copy of this novel was sent to me via the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not effect my opinion in any way. Thank you. Yrsa Daley-Ward is no stranger to expressive prose and Bone is a firm nod to this. In just a few pages, readers of all ages will be compelled by her poetry and the bluntness she portrays life in small passages. From hard-to-handle, to perfectly-accurate, to some combination of the both; Daley-Ward is one of the most phenomenal talents to come to the world of modern poetry. I'm just stating facts. I've said it multiple times, but I'll say it again: 2017 has been such a brilliant year in terms of what's been published to the genre. Poetry is not for everyone, but the intimacy that Daley-Ward portrays should be. It should be at the top of your list. It should be at the top of the "best of" lists. I kid you not when I say that she packs a serious punch and if you guys could see how much I highlighted in my galley, you'd know I'm not exaggerating. Much like Depression & Other Magic Tricks, The Chaos of Longing, peluda and The Princess Saves Herself in this One, Yrsa Daley-Ward provides the community with a voice that was desperately needed. When she feels, she writes, and we feel. It's not simple but it's not complex. What I loved most about Bone was its frank portrayal of sex and a turbulent way of growing up. Poets bare their souls daily but Daley-Ward bares her souls and her bones for her work and it shows in every thought provoking line. Readers will be left breathless and, perhaps, feel a bit more understood by the end of Bone. Every expression, every line, every word, every nod--the good, the bad and the inbetweens is prone to explosion in Bone and it's one of the most beautiful but poignant explosions you will know. I can't express how much Bone meant to me. I can only praise it until I'm blue in the face.

















Highlights

“If you are afraid to write it, that's a good sign. I suppose you know when you're writing the truth when you're terrified.”