First and foremost, this poetry collection is not for the faint of heart. It tackles a number of difficult subjects that may be hard for some people to stomach, but that's part of the reason I really enjoy it. Poetry is such a great medium when it comes to expressing pain and trauma, it allows the words and emotions to come through in a raw way.

I really felt that Brenna Twohy attacked these subjects well and the collection in a way is a type of catharsis. While it will probably be difficult for many to read, I feel it will resonate with many people. Keep in mind we have trigger warnings for abuse, rape, grief, anxiety, death of a sibling, mental illness and more.

This book of poetry was very touching to read! Coming from a domestic violence survivor myself who went through some of the stuff the narrator of the poetry went through I felt like I was walking every step of the way with them. It’s definitely worth the read if you are able to handle such a tough topic!

Right from the very first poem you read, Swallowtail packs an emotional punch that is hard to forget. A powerful poetry collection about survival and grief, I have never read a collection that was able to put into words things that are inexplicable. It is beautiful and devastating all at once.

In this poetry collection mental health, grief and trauma are explored in ways in ways I've never read before. What makes 'Swallowtail' so unique is how honest and raw Twohy's poems are. These poems are powerful and blunt, straight to the point.

"& as long as you're there/in the back of the room,/I am going to be here,/voice made from smoulder,/because this is my story/and you cannot take this/from me."

Trigger warnings: suicide, abuse, grief, anxiety.
[I received a copy on NetGalley for a honest review]

This is a collection of poems about pain, grief, mental health. It is a modern form of poetry with little to no rhyming, but written in verse. There are shorter and longer poems. There are personal poems and poems from the perspectives of popular characters (I LOVED the Neville one so much, it hurts).
Overall, I enjoyed these poems. I marked so many of them. They were honest, to the point and made me feel all of the emotions.
I am still at a bit of a loss to describe how good this was because I'm not yet sure I like what it did to my feelings. But like any good poetry, it made me feel something and I enjoyed the world Twohy painted, even when it wasn't pleasant.
Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC for this. What a gem.

To love me
is to love a haunted house.
It's fun to visit once a year,
but no one wants to live there.

It was very hard to connect with the poems in the beginning but thankfully that quickly changed and she started to be "more real" which made me instantly connect. I really wish she had kept that pace through the entire book.

Swallowtail, a collection of poems by Brenna Twohy, delves deeply into the topics of loss and grief. I found the poems to be not only quite profound, but highly accessible, and I was pulled into a stream of consciousness from which I could not look away. I anxiously anticipate reading more of Ms Twohy's work. Hers is a fresh, relevant voice that needs to be heard.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Button Poetry for this ARC.

Surprise, surprise, another collection from Button Poetry that I absolutely adore. As many of you know, I’m a poetry geek, especially about spoken word poetry, and when it comes to spoken word, Button Poetry has some of the best talent out there. Frankly, if there’s a Button book on NetGalley, the odds are pretty high that I’m going to insist on reading it, and Swallowtail certainly did not disappoint. In her debut collection, Brenna Twohy examines topics including abusive relationships, trauma, suicide, femininity, love (or lack thereof), and healing, using metaphors ranging from the traditional (e.g. fruit) to the incredibly contemporary (e.g. Harry Potter). Her language is highly readable–seriously, I finished this entire collection in one sitting, on my lunch break–which makes me think that (a) these pieces would all be fantastic as spoken word/performance pieces, and (b) this collection will appeal to fans of contemporary poetry in general, as well as those who generally don’t like poetry because they find it “too stuffy” or “not relatable.”

As is often the case with collections, be they of short stories, poems, or some other third thing, there will be some weak links. Though the majority of her poems are incisive, with lyrical precision, especially those about her brother’s suicide, and some are brilliantly clever in their links between pop culture and deep personal reality, such as the discussion of trauma in “Draco Malfoy Looks Into the Mirror of Erised,” there are a few that veer too far into the realm of cliches and generalities. Most of these weaker ones are those that are specifically linked to a traumatic past relationship of hers, and this is understandable–grappling with a hard topic is sometimes easier in the abstract, but in this case, that meant gravitating toward less-than-original imagery or poems that seek to capture too many thoughts at once and end up less impactful.

That said, this was overall a fantastic chapbook, one I would like to reread sometime soon just to more fully absorb its contents. It is unafraid of confronting difficult subjects, and it does so with just the right mix of fragile delicacy and blunt intensity. If you are not big on non-classical poetry (and I know there are plenty of you out there), this is not likely to change your mind, but for those of you who do enjoy poetry of a more contemporary variety–especially if you are interested in the topics this collection deals with–I would definitely recommend giving this one a read. I can’t wait to read–and watch–what Twohy writes in the future.

A version of this review that also contains quotes from the chapbook can be found on my blog here: https://therealkspecks.wordpress.com/2019/12/05/swallowtail-review/

TRIGGER/CONTENT WARNINGS: suicide, abuse, anxiety/panic attacks

Usually, book about this subject hit me so hard, but this one did flatline. Sadly.
I did feel the punches nor did feel anything....
Although I'm still open to read more work from this author. Thanks Netgalley for the copy of this collection of poetry.

“grief is not a feeling
but a neighborhood.

this is where I come from.
everyone I love still lives there.”

I absolutely loved this new feminist poetry book that deals with topics like mental illness, sexual assault and loss. Twohy is utterly raw, honest and real in poems that are beautifully crafted. Finally, after reading so much Instagram Lite poetry lately, I am so glad to have found poetry that makes me feel and think and want to read lines of it to my husband and grown kids (who are all poets and poetry lovers too). Lines like I will never again not know the sound of my mother breaking deal with the death of her brother heartbreakingly well, while lines like how it was the gentlest of guttings tell of the pain of abuse and toxic relationships with loves that are hard to quit and harder to recover from.

An excerpt from WHEN THE CRAZY CAME BACK

this body knows fear like a front porch
knows welcome--it is always coming home.

& you cannot pull the crazy out of me
the way you cannot put a flower back to bed,

but this body knows withstand, knows
what the morning looks like when she says stay.

Twohy is a bit of a modern Anne Sexton or Sylvia Plath, writing woman-centered poetry that deals with topics like mental illness and brutal self reflection, but with 21st century references to Harry Potter, Xanax and Facebook. Don't pick it up if you want cheerful, rhyming or easy poems.

I'll be buying a copy of this one. This is by far my favorite book of poems in quite a long time.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

"How reckless, the way that I love/ like the first chapter of a ghost story./ Like the gentlest hand/ reaching out of a grave"

Brenna Twohy's Swallowtail is a dynamic collection of poetry, unlike any others I've read. The poems included are powerful, every line expresses something powerful and magnificently human. After I read each poem, I have to just repeat a couple of lines to myself because they're just so good.

I've followed Brenna Twohy for years, since about 2015 when I first encountered her poem "In Which I Do Not Fear Harvey Dent," which is included in this book. I had never before heard a poet with such a strong voice and such hard-hitting lines. She was an instant favorite, and I've followed her across social media ever since.

It's really wonderful to see her poems in print, and Swallowtail includes some of her best, "Draco Malfoy Looks Into the Mirror of Erised," "Anxiety: A Ghost Story," and "That Awful Month I Can Only Write Poems About Leaving, And/Or About Limp Bizkit" are some of my favorites. That said, like every poetry collection, there are hits and misses. Most are hits, but some poems can become repetitive in form. In these groups of poems with similar forms, one or two end up shining brighter than the others.

I enjoyed this collection immensely, and the poems that shine bright are absolutely brilliant.

There are poems that grasp your darkness...and give a name to the feelings that you so struggle with. I wish I could say so of this collection without coming off as a major fan of collections by Button Poetry.
This collection right here reminded me of the things I wish to shame and name, about rape, about fear, loneliness, betrayal, anger, love and dreams.

This is a must-read.
Thanks Netgalley for the eARC.

Cute little books of poetry. I absolutely love poems. This book had a lot of poems that I enjoyed but then again I enjoy every book I read from button poetry

This was an excellent poetry collection that was really thematically interwoven without being redundant or repetitive. The author did an excellent job of succinctly but eloquently relating her life struggles to her readers. More often than not, poetry enters into the grandiose while Swallowtail remained grounded. I highly recommend this book as well as this author!

I was recently introduced to Brenna’s work from a YA author, Sarah Nicole Lemon, and I instantly dove down the rabbit hole to find every video and piece of writing of hers I could. I went to my local indie bookstore to see if they had any of her books, or could order them, and was sadly told that they couldn’t order them because of the publishing company her collections were with. So....I was ECSTATIC when I saw this book on netgalley. Brenna’s great and I’ve already recommended her work to my 62 year old mother and my 24 year old sister!

Sometimes it's difficult to read rape poems and surprisingly, Brenna Twohy directly responds to men who think this way right in a great poem at the start of this collection. It's her voice and she will use it to say what she wants to say. She states it much better than I. Her poems deal with loss, whether it is a family member's suicide, her own attempts, trauma and love...and brings in pop culture metaphors from Survivor and Harry Potter, among others. Twohy's collection is excellent, biting, and rough, leaving this reader unravelled and contemplating my own traumas.

Swallowtail is a short, potent volume of poetry by Brenna Twohy, who comes out of the scene in Portland, Oregon and is finishing law school. An overall strong debut, Twohy's poetry is like a bracing, but refreshing, step into the first winter air. I wasn't expecting it, but god, does it feel good.

Read the rest of the review at my site:
https://midnightvosswriting.blogspot.com/2019/11/poetry-reviews-swallowtail.html

I enjoyed this book of poems. They were intense and enjoyable. Done seemed very personal, but they were enjoyable none the less.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

This was nice. I read it on Kindle so I'm positive I didn't read it the way it was meant to be read, formatting wise but I enjoyed it all the same. The poems were longer than I expected, or at least longer than the ones I've read recently which was nice for a change.

Swallowtail spoke of grief, abuse, a lot of pop culture references and mental health. Some of these were really powerful and actually very raw and unapologetic.

when I say I forgive you
know this
I did not bury the hatchet.
I have the hatchet in my hands.
I am building a new house.

Good stuff.