I’m unable to access this book to read it because the download won’t work on my phone or laptop. If this issue could be fixed, I would love to be able to try and download it again because this anthology sounds really good and important.

Unfortunately I can't read this book as it is ACSM format and it's not readable on both my phone or computer.

I would've loved to read this as it's something that I would enjoy and the cover is beautiful.

I'm giving it 3 stars as I do love the cover and I think it's important, brave and inspirational for all these wonderful people to come together to share their stories.

I will review it again when it's released!

To preface this review, I want to say that I am not a poetry person. There are a few poems that I love, that really speak to me, but 90% of the poetry I've read just goes over my head, or just seems like words for the sake of words, without any meaning holding them together.

That being said, the poetry in this book was hit or miss for me. Some of it was good, but some of it was a little too abstract for my taste; pretty words put together in a way that I'm sure was significant for the author, but meant nothing to me.

However, I think the idea to pair the poetry with comic-style art was brilliant. The art was beautiful, and it really helped frame the poetry in a way that helped me, a non-poetry person, understand and experience the poetry in a much clearer way. The art and poetry work well together, and I really enjoyed getting to see the collaborative work of multiple artists, and the range of experiences and perspectives represented from women of different backgrounds, cultures, and identities.

It was also very cool that the book included discussion questions for each piece, which is a great way to enable this to be used in an educational or book group setting. I also enjoyed seeing the thumbnails and process pieces from the artists.

All this to say, despite not being a huge poetry lover, I really enjoyed this, and I'm sure that people who are into poetry would enjoy it even more!

I absolutely loved the idea behind this. I love poetry, and combining this with artwork was an incredible concept.
The art itself was absolutely stunning, and I can't even put into words how much I love the cover. Each artist did a beautiful job of capturing the emotion in each narrative.
I also really admired and enjoyed the diverse range of voices, championing intersectionality and voices we don't often get to hear due to the elitist ideals surrounding poetry.
Ironically, though, this is where I was let down. I don't doubt that if you sat and intensely analysed each poem, they would be incredible, but as someone who reads poetry for enjoyment, the majority of it went straight over my head.
This being said, poetry is all about personal preference. If complex poetry is your thing, this collection is perfect! For me, though, it was a little too much.
I'd love to see a very similar collection with some more accessible pieces in the future!

i cant read this book as the acsm format is not readable in my laptop or mobile and its also not showing in the netgalley shelf app

please look into this issue

and if you can, send me the book in pdf version.

or contact me through my email id- taniagungunsarkar@gmail.com

A beautiful collection of illustrated poetry. I loved the vast array of artistry styles presented, as well as the various voices portrayed in the poetry.

The hearts are in the right place for this collection of poetry/illustration mashups, but the quality is lacking. It's a hard thing, combining poetry and graphic work, it can be a bit like playing two different pieces of music at the same time.

Pretty much the thing you shouldn't do, is literally illustrating what the poem describes, and most of the entries in this collection do exactly that. Only a few go for some form of contrast, which creates a thrilling tension.

I'm not sure what to think of the decision to print the poem as text after each illustrated version - on one hand, I appreciate seeing the poem on its own (sometimes doing their own visual things in typography), on the other hand, it seems to indicate a lack of confidence.

I was impressed by a lot of the poetry, there's some really beautiful work here. I feel the graphic parts are a bit too cliched, and mostly don't really add a lot.

I wanted to love this sooooooo badly. As individual bits I totally did. I loved the artwork. I loved the feminism and empowerment. I loved many of the poems. And I loved the concept. However together I was confused and because of that each section felt choppy to me. I still give it four stars for all of the individual elements.

The artwork in this book is absolutely STUNNING and so original! I really did appreciate the utilization of these elements to combine comics with poetry. Unfortunately, while I adore graphic novels, I tend to struggle to understand and connect with poems that I read. I was really hoping that this lovely combination would help, but I was pretty lost for the first ~50 pages.

However!! This is not a negative reflection of the book, just on me needing to keep reading poetry! The study guide at the end was very helpful, allowing me to go back and try to reflect on the poems and gain a better understanding. At times, the broken-up poems on each page made them even more difficult for me to understand, so thank you for the full poems at the end of each section! I appreciated the chance to read the poems in another way.

Those who love poetry (and even those who don't!) and graphic novels should certainly read this unique anthology. I'm certainly very grateful for the opportunity to do so.

I admit I really struggle with poetry. I often don't catch the *deeper meaning* behind the words, and it mostly goes over my head. Unfortunately, this poetry collection is an example of that. That's not to say that the book is bad -- because it's not. It just wasn't for me. I think that this collection of poetry would be perfect for those who do comprehend the symbolic words of poetry.

I will say that the art in the book were absolutely GORGEOUS. The illustrators did an amazing job.

3.5 stars! I’ve never read a combination of poetry and graphic novel, and as someone who loves graphic novels and tries to read more poetry (but isn’t always good at it), I found the mixture really interesting and helpful to me understanding the message of the poems. They definitely were an eclectic mix of stories, some very dark and others hopeful or light, all of them beautifully illustrated. Some I think still went a tad over my head, and I really enjoyed the inclusion of discussion questions at the end - I didn’t have the answers but it helped me to think differently about some of the poems, as I focused on them.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange of an honest review.

Embodied is a gorgeous collection of illustrated poetry. This is my first experience with a book that takes poetry and brings it to life on its pages in the form of art. I'm a bit difficult when it comes to poetry, but I was captivated by the gorgeous art and the diversity of the voices behind each piece. The collection shows people from different genders, sexualities, and races and celebrates their beauty and individuality. A lot of the book felt joyful to me in the way it allowed the authors and artists to express these stories. Even the more difficult, triggering topics were given their weight.

I also can't stress how stunning the art is. The entire collection is beautifully written and illustrated!

I really enjoyed reading this anthology, and this marriage of art and poetry is a medium I'd love to come back to in the future.

So the download link for this won’t work for me but I see that has happened for a few other users. I’m going to give this book a neutral 3 stars as I cannot form an opinion on it.

The concept of this anthology is brilliant, and it's definitely a big part of why I chose to give this a try. Poetry is so often viewed as an inaccessible art form, something only a select intellectual few can enjoy. Comics, on the other hand, have a mass appeal that engages readers across genres and interests. In this collection, we get a beautiful blend of feminist poems and illustrations that work together to create a very quick and enjoyable reading experience.

Each poem is displayed on a corresponding comic/artwork, which is followed by a plain text page where readers can read the poem by itself. This was a very helpful addition because sometimes it was hard to follow the lyrical line of the poem through the different pages and graphics. I struggled to decide what to pay attention to because both the art and the poetry called out to me, and so my attention was being pulled in many ways as I read through it.

The collection is transgressive, brave, and intersectional, featuring many different identities that are examples of both unique and community experiences. A very valuable and necessary read.

Some of my favourite poems:
"Good Bones" by Maggie Smith (this one is probably my favourite, so so good)
"Red Woman" by Kenzie Allen
"Gender Studies" by Caroline Hagwood
"Units & Increments" (excerpt) by Shira Dentz
"Capitalism Ruins Everything, Even Witchcraft" by Kendra DeColo

I usually don’t read poetry books, but this concept of a poetry anthology in graphic novel form, piqued my interest.

I loved the different kinds of illustrations and the poetic literature that went with them. Some of them were simply brilliant.

A well illustrated and well thought out poetic rendition. It is definitely a unique and refreshing idea!

This is a poetry anthology in graphic novel form. All of the poems offer a feminine perspective, some considering the feminine in conjunction with other issues (race – e.g. “Red Woman;” or gender – e.g. “Gender Studies.”) As one might expect of an anthology, the poetic and artistic styles vary considerably from one entry to the next. That said, the 23 poems are predominantly short (most written or excerpted to fit one page) free verse poems that focus heavily on human experiences that are either unique to womanhood (e.g. motherhood) or for with the feminine perspective is quite distinctive (e.g. migration, war, etc.) While the artistic styles are quite varied, they are of a range one would see as a reader of graphic novels -- some rough, some cartoonish, and some elaborate.

While the anthologized works all conform to a common feminist motif, there is quite a variety of topics and tones across the various pieces. The most widespread topic is that of motherhood, though from various perspectives (i.e. new mother, mother-to-be, prospective mother, a daughter’s relationship with mother, etc.) and attitudes. There are visceral entries that deal in various traumas – e.g. “Speak-House” (deals with the question of whether one speaks of trauma of living in a war zone freely) or “University Toxic” (which describes an incident of sexual harassment.) Love and relationships is another recurring theme (e.g. “To the Cherry Blossoms on 16th and Wharton” and “Drown.”) Other topics touched upon include menopause and wicca / witchcraft. [On a related note: While it does have a serious side, “Capitalism Ruins Everything, Even Witch Craft” is probably the most humorous of the poems, dealing with the issue of how quickly spiritual practices that propose to eschew materialism become the most outlandishly materialistic domains of all.]

The included artistic styles reflect realism (e.g. “Good Bones,”) surrealism (e.g. “Rubble Girls” and “Gender Studies.”) My favorite artwork of the book was in “Half Girl, Then Elegy.” Its panels are vivid, evocative, and beautifully rendered. (It’s also one of my favorite poems of the collection.) That said, favorites are very personal, and your view may vary. “Settlement” (which deals with immigration) is another of the more attractively illustrated works, as well as being quite an intense poem.

There aren’t a lot of poetry collections that employ graphic novel style illustration. Besides making the anthology more aesthetically pleasing, this approach offers a couple of other benefits. The most obvious is that the illustrations offer another reader’s (the illustrator(s)) perception of the poem -- presumably a take on the poem that came about via discussion with the poet. [Note: this might not be seen as a benefit to all readers. Some might want to take the poem in without being subject to the interpretation of another. A nice feature of this book is that each poem is presented in text form after the illustrated version, giving the reader an opportunity to take the poem in without being flavored by a third-party perspective. Thus, one can read the poem straight first, and then go back and take in the illustrated edition (granted it would be a more awkward reading experience,) but it would let one compare one’s own picture of the poem with that of another.] A less apparent benefit is that it makes it easier to influence the pacing and pausing of reading. Dramatic use of white space for just this purpose has been used by poets for a long time, but building the textboxes around the art can make pacing changes all the more apparent.

There is a study guide and sketch art included as ancillary material. The former consists of a few questions about each poem that might be used by a book club or the like.

I thought this was a splendid collection of poems, and the art all worked – whether it was simple and chaotic or stunningly beautiful. I’d recommend readers of poetry check this anthology out, particularly if one likes the idea of merging the graphic and poetic arts.

I got this on Netgalley in exchange for an honest review!

2.5⭐️

I think this is a really nice collection overall, and I like how different both the poems and the art styles were in this! I think my biggest issue was probably that a combo of me expecting all the people on the cover (which is STUNNING) to be featured in the book, which they were not at all, the description of it promising too much, and me having English as a second language (Supposed native-like competence tho). Like, I was SO hyped for this book since I'm a big feminist and love anything with good rep, but I felt like it didn't deliver to that level at which it had hyped me up. I also found several of the poems REALLY hard to understand, and found that some of the illustrations / comics for them were dividing up lines / parts in the poem in a weird way that disrupted the whole flow! For quite a few of them I understood literally nothing when I was reading it with the comic, but once I read the full poem at the end of the part I understood either parts or the whole poem. So good that the full poem is included at the end of each part, but also not good that the illustrations/comics for some/many of them were not really adding to the story at all.
Really glad it had a study guide at the end!!!

Overall a decent one, but wished the cover actually showed people from all the comics and that the comics were acting even more as support for the poem.

I am new to NetGalley and this was the first book I was approved for. So when I I couldn’t get this to actually download, I thought it was just me. But after seeing other’s feedback, I know it’s not just me. I tried downloading this book on multiple devices, but only got errors and couldn’t get access to it. I would have loved to read this because it sounded right up my alley, but it looks like I will have to just wait and read it when it comes out.

This was my first time reading a poetry collection that is also illustrated. There are some that I liked or related to more than others, but overall I really enjoyed this. The poems felt real and raw and really grab a readers attention and pull at the heart and soul. This is perfect if you like to read poems that challenge your beliefs and make you feel something new or experience life from a different perspective.

awwww I love this so much. This is so good to bring about awareness and this was just such a sweet amazing graphic novel to really bring about self-love for everyone. AND the artwork was PHENOMENAL>
I still think it is soooo amazing how so many of these authors and illustrators came together to create this :)

highly recommend!!