Book Review — I Always Carry My Bones by Felicia Zamora

Thank you Netgalley and University Of Iowa Press for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 4/5

Genre: Poetry

I Always Carry My Bones is a complex ideation for many people of color and migrant peoples. Felicia Zamora explores how familial history echoes inside a person and the ghosts of lineage dwell in a body. Sometimes we haunt. Sometimes we are the haunted. Pierced by an estranged relationship to Mexican culture, the ethereal ache of an unknown father, the weight of racism and poverty in this country, the indentations of abuse, and a mind/physicality affected by doubt, these poems root in the search for belonging.

_{via Goodreads}

What a breathtaking collection of poems! These poems will remain a searing reflection of the years of the Tr*mp administration especially through the perspective of a person of color. What stood out most to me are the lines about the concentration camps (yes, I said what I said). Beautifully and painfully, Zamora’s words bring recognition to the atrocity of parents being separated from their children at our borders. This is a must-read— even if you aren’t necessarily a poetry person.

Love love love the use of visceral imagery and medical terms
I remember when I learned the word ‘syzygy’ and this is the first time I’ve ever seen it in a poem! Brought back memories of when I learned this word and it was so cool to see it used.

I am not sure if this is due to my copy, but I personally am not a fan of the block format of some of these poems. It made the poems read in a very choppy and rushed manner in my personal opinion.