A Throat Full of Forest-Dirt delivers what the summary promises, and that is a fantastic exploration of the author's emotions of envy and desire twined with mythology and nature, ripe with melodic stanzas that speak to the soul. Over a span of nine poems, readers will go on a path of many emotions and different kinds of imagery.
What will become of my goldenness as it's ground down to sand and cast on the wind?
Bri Stokes begins the collection with a poem that tackles the emotion of jealousy. Stokes captures the inner struggle uniquely, transforming the emotion into a physical entity that is to be born, "an Olympian unwritten" and how comparison in envy leads to the spiraling of emotions, "you will best me in the end."
I would pull out my veins for you
The second poem, "Twin," speaks of an ethereal connection between two people or elements. I love the lines at the end about singing to each other, where the imagery pulls us to see how the bond between the two is unbreakable even from a short distance between them, as mentioned from the "slope of your gaze" where one is looking at the other. This poem may not represent people but could also embody emotions, as the summary describes envy and desire.Â
glamor magick lodged inside her sockets like a diamond-plated lobotomy rod
The following two poems are about writing and inspiration, losing ourselves in emotion and inspiration or lack thereof. "Death of the Author" seems more about being inspired, while "A Muse Made of Shrapnel" is more about finding inspiration. Yet both are about how we dig into the parts of our lives that cause hurt to us, yet we produce something worthwhile from what we create. That is my interpretation of Stokes' writing, but I could be wrong.
I will leave the rest of the poems for readers to find out more about other topics of desire, silence, and rebirth. I want to allow readers to discover what they like most about the poems by themselves.Â
The collection must be read more than once, not simply out of necessity to understand the poems further but to really enjoy the experience. Each poem is very immersive and brings the reader to a new world within the poem. I wish the collection were longer so I could read even more and delve deeper into the author's writing. The poetry is deliberate in wording. After the second readthrough, I love every poem more for the vibrant imagery.Â
I would recommend A Throat Full of Forest-Dirt to poetry lovers who enjoy works like that of Rupi Kaur and Nayyirah Waheed.
