Name: Deepika Ramesh's review of The Chaos of Longing by K.Y. Robinson
Item: The Chaos of Longing
Rating: 5
Author: Deepika Ramesh

K.Y. Robinson

Organized in four sections – Inception, Longing, Chaos, and Epiphany – K.Y. Robinson's debut poetry collection explores what it is to want in spite of trauma, shame, injustice, and mental illness. It is one survivor's powerful testimony, and a love letter "to those who lie awake burning."

The Chaos of Longing

aishani

K y Robinson

"The Chaos of Longing" is a prose and poetry collection draped in raw honesty, ache, and eroticism. The collection explores trauma, love, heartbreak, and the realizations from it all. The book is divided into four sections. "Inception" briefly examines formative years and its effects on how one loves. "Longing" reflects on love and sexuality. "Chaos" explores toxic relationships, unrequited love, and heartache. After chaos, there is order with self-love and healing poems in "epiphany." "Some content may be triggering."

Deepika Ramesh

For all of us who love dark, maudlin, inspiring, soul-nourishing, soul-smashing poems, like the ones in Nikita Gill's 'Your Soul is A River', Amanda Lovelace's 'The Princess Saves Herself in This One', and Rupi Kaur's 'Milk and Honey', KY Robinson's 'The Chaos of Longing' is a beautiful, beautiful gift.
This collection is replete with pain and regrets and tears and self-love. I am not sure if I can grasp that whirlwind of emotions in a day. Just like how I keep revisiting the other poetry collections, I will go back to this one too. "We can take turns healing each other," writes Robinson in a poem. I think we all must use and practise that sentence often. Some poems refuse to come home with home. Some poems refuse to leave my room. It's a moving book all the same.

Danielle 

tina

The Chaos of Longing did a much better job at sensual poetry. Everything that Michael Faudet's Dirty Pretty Things didn't have, this book had it. However, this wasn't really mesmerizing or entirely beautiful. There were some poems I didn't like, and some I did like. 
  
“you are a natural
phenomenon—
not a natural disaster.”

High Fidelity

Nije lose. Kratko stivo,nema mozganja. Ima tu i tamo neka mudra.

K. Y. Robinson

The Chaos of Longing is a prose and poetry collection draped in raw honesty, ache, and eroticism. The collection explores trauma, love, heartbreak, and the realizations from it all. Some content may be triggering.

Maya Elize

Nicki

The second I read the first poem I knew it would be five stars. This was a beautiful collection that I found extremely relatable. Each poem was my truth and my friends truth. I really enjoyed this.

Jennifer Merchant

Clara hash

y'all have to read this!!!! so many good heartbreaking poems !

noha

I forced myself to finish it~ since they say there’s no bad poetry i’d say that this wasn’t my taste..

ella

Someone explain to me:
How
Is
This
Poetry?

Just because you decided on a sensitive topic like abuse to write about does not mean you can just randomly hit enter between each word or word group you like and call it a poem. 

I seriously do not understand the appeal of modern poetry. Why do I keep trying?

Brianna Brown

This poem collection had a few really incredible pieces that I loved. However the rest of it was just okay. I didn't love it but I didn't not like it.

Jessica 

don’t shrink 
your truth
to make it fit 
nice and neatly 
in others 
as if it’s origami. 

unfold and 
free yourself.


As a note, an e-galley of this novel was sent to me via NetGalley by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not effect my opinions in any way.

K.Y. Robinson knows what makes poetry. This much was apparent in The Chaos of Longing and I'm so incredibly moved by what she portrayed. She dives deeper and deeper into parts of her soul and gives us this intimate look inside. Something that is not always possible. Yet, here it is, that reminder that it's not impossible to feel connected to someone else's words. Much like with Depression & Other Magic Tricks, Milk and Honey and The Princess Saves Herself in this One, Robinson crafts something so obtainable and wonderful, I could not put the collection down. 

To say that The Chaos of Longing was beautiful and one of my most beloved collections of poetry this year would be an injustice. It was so much more than that. I hadn't read the previously published edition of this, but when I read the blurb--I just had to. You know that feeling of an instant connection? I had that. I had that before I opened it. I had that the first line I read. I had it long after the final poem had passed my by. 

For me, there's nothing more stunning than this collection. It takes a special talent to express themselves and scatter emotion throughout the pages of a book. But for them to do it in poems? That's some sort of otherworldly magic. I'm here for everything that K.Y. Robinson writes. She's got a stan for life. I can't tell you guys how much I loved this powerful little guy without sounding like an incoherent weirdo, but know this: I rarely feel this connected to poetry. 

I can't wait for the finished copies so I can highlight the heck out of it. 

I am going to be hungover from the prose. Just so we're all clear.

Kate

For me, this collection was definitely a case of mostly ‘likes’ with a few loves. There are a number of poems included in this that I will without a doubt be hiding away and keeping close to me but the majority of them I didn’t personally connect with too much. With that being said, that is very much just a personal reaction in terms to my emotional connection with the poems and my own discovery of taste and preference when it comes to poetry (of which I still haven’t totally found my stance yet). So there’s no doubt that many of these poems are wonderfully written and full of raw emotion, that I’m sure many will be able to connect and relate to more so than I did.

TW: sexual assault, rape, race, mental illness

Gretchen Gomez

You can find my full review here with some of my favorite poems

You can’t hear me but I’m screaming because YOU ALL NEED TO PURCHASE THIS COLLECTION OF POEMS!!! So so so good!! So freaking amazing and inspiring and just reading her poetry and knowing what she has been through, the way she writes is fantastic.

K.Y. Robinson has divided her poems into sections titled Inception, Longing, Chaos, and Epiphany. And it’s told almost like a story where she talks about her trauma as a child, how loving another was effected because of that trauma. She also talks about heartbreak, toxicity, healing, and self love.

The author takes us through her growing experience with these poems. I literally cried with some of these and after reading her first two poems, I was sucked in and knew I was going to relate in such a deep way. After reading the poems, I saw how closely related it is to my own poetry book.

I felt relieved in a way to know that my experiences weren’t just my own and that someone else had related to them in her own way.

K.Y. Robinson is a WoC (women of color) and she even mentions her roots in some of the poems which was so raw and excuse me but so fucking beautiful. It was empowering and I feel like we need more of that in the book community, in poetry, in all aspects of life. Women speaking of their roots. She talks about herself unapologetically and I applaud her for that.

Yes, some of these poems are sad and full of so much deep emotion. However, there’s a message and there’s positivity in the end.

aishani &
The Chaos of Longing by K.Y. Robinson

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aishani &The Chaos of Longing by K.Y. Robinson

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Join the club

aishani &
The Chaos of Longing by K.Y. Robinson