Overall, The Smallest of Bones is a strong collection of poetry. While not the gruesome body horror that the title might imply, it is a book both intimate and perturbing. It’s the kind of horror that lingers within the reader long after the covers have closed, and there are lines that readers will keep returning to again and again. Walrath has already proven herself to be an incredible speculative poet with her award-winning Glimmerglass Girl, and The Smallest of Bones only keeps that streak going. This is certainly a book that any horror reader and poetry reader should pursue.

This book trapped me right from the first. I loved the conceit, vignettes about different bones of the body framing the beautiful poems. I did so much underlining!

The smallest of bones by Holly Lyn Walrath

In this mini collection of poetry, Walrath travels down the body and provides a number of short poems within each bone (section). These poems cover a number of topics, including gender, emotional and physical abuse, love, pain, sexuality, religion, death, and many more.

Firstly, I’m obsessed with this cover - absolutely stunning, well done.

Whilst I love some honest, raw, concise and simple poetry, I couldn’t help but be a little let down with this one. I thoroughly liked some of the imagery, I thought the layout was awesome and I love what this poetry is saying.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly as dark, gruesome or haunting as I was hoping. This collection just didn’t have me as captivated as I like when reading poetry.
I think Walrath really could’ve taken this further, I understand it’s simplicity but with so many topics included and such minimal words I felt it was only just scraping the surface.

Thank you Holly for some short and sweet poetry, this one wasn’t a fav but I can’t wait to see what’s next. Also thanks to NetGalley and CLASH Books for an early copy.

The Smallest of Bones is a poetry collection that goes through the bones of the body that roughly correlate to the poems, and it was really interesting. Each section contains a little information about each bone or bone system. I loved the way it was set up.

The poems are short and simple, but also beautiful. You can see the author's pain, worry, happiness, love through each of them. Walrath delves into gender dysphoria, pain, abuse, and love through these short poems.

They're easy to read and it's a quick book to fly through when you just want to settle down with a nice cup of tea.

Plus, the cover is gorgeous.

Thank you to NetGalley, and also Clash Books and Leza Cantoral for sending me a physical copy of The Smallest of Bones to review! The Smallest of Bones releases on September 26th.

The Smallest of Bones by Holly Lyn Walrath

Every now and then I catch the poetry bug, but I sometimes find it difficult to get into, so I’ll usually refer back to my favorite poems. I branched out this time with The Smallest of Bones.

This mini collection of poems cycles through bones of the body, including the cranium, sternum, temporal bones, and others. Each starts with a smattering of its scientific facts or associated myths or history or etymology before abruptly switching to the all-lower-case, free verse poetry.

If I’m being honest, I had higher hopes for this one. The poems touch on too many different themes, such as love, abuse, religion, demons, holiness, gender, and sexuality. Yet, the poems only seem to skim the surface of these issues, resulting in a project that is not cohesive and left me feeling very much like I didn’t “get” it.

The cooler parts about the book: There were some incredibly beautiful lines. The description of each bone almost feels interrupted by the poem, which creates an interesting effect that makes it feel like you’re in someone’s head, hearing their thoughts that are intruding on their reading about bones. There’s also a neat juxtaposition between the physical nature of the bones with themes of immaterial things in the free verse sections.

Overall, I think it’s a project with good potential. But if you’re more practiced in reading poetry, perhaps it’s worth a try.

📖: (3/5) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I enjoyed the concept of this book and the short bone essays more than I enjoyed the poems themselves, but I did like them. I have a background in biology, so I am familiar with the ideas of coming to term with your feminism as a woman whose body has physical differences to that of a man's. Our bones can tell our biological sex, but not our gender. Our bones are not us, even if our bones tell a different story than how we feel.

I received a copy of this book from netgalley for an honest review. I hate to rate poetry super low because for some it is a form of therapy when they write it. I didn't really connect with it though and nothing stood out to me. Someone else might though. It is a super quick read and it didn't take long at all.

I absolutely loved reading this book. i loved the way it was formatted and how it first gave a description of the bone and them followed by a beautifully written poetry about the experience of the writer.

This poetry collection was a short and quick read. The synopsis and cover are what drew me to the book. I loved that the poems were inspired by human anatomy. In my opinion, it made the poems a bit unique. However, I was expecting a little more. I’m not entirely sure what, I felt like something was missing. Overall, if you enjoy learning about human anatomy and love poems about love, relationships, death, ghosts, etc., then I recommend this book

*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance review copy.*

The poems would start off really strong and then veer off into stream-of-consciousness babble. Every single one of them. The formatting of the ebook was off (no spaces between poems, cluttered), though this will hopefully change. I appreciate what Walrath is trying to do, and I'm sure someone out there will enjoy it, but it's not for me.

I enjoyed reading this collection of poetry. The formatting made it a little hard to see the separation between sections, especially as I was reading it on my phone. I think more clear delineations in the ebook format would serve this collection better. Overall, worth a read if it sounds intriguing to you.

Rating: 3
Re-Read Factor: No

"these secrets you carry for me,
are they too heavy?"

The Smallest of Bones combines science with poetry and begins with an overview of the bone in question and followed by verses describing the bone itself. The overviews are informative and insightful, but the verses like the following were confusing to read:
"my body is two-thirds
whiskey
and one-third
ghosts"


While others were beautiful to imagine:
"to love so much your body changes
curving together like two halves of the taijitsu
or the earth and the moon
must be dreadful and excruciating"


Overall, the book is a nice, quick read about the human body presented in a niche manner, and I would recommend it to those who seek to coalesce poetry with science.

At once both tender and heartwrenching, The Smallest of Bones is a beautiful expansion on the idea of the human soul and body. The author's words cut deep, but intentionally so, mixing prose definitions of the body with emotional poetry.

4.25

A collection of poems categorize in a form of anatomy. Each anatomical part is presented and described to what it truly is. Each poem represents a part of that anatomical part.

These collections of poem was pretty interesting and not too complicated to read through.

I connected to some poems, overall I really enjoyed this poetry book more than my other ones.

I would like to say thank you to NetGalley for providing me an E-arc for an honest review and I would also like to say thank you to the author and publishing company for sending me a physical copy.

Esta calificado como "horror" y la verdad es que solo es explícito, nada más.
Es muy interesante ver cómo se expresa de esta manera morbosa pero a la vez tan poética, que no hace que te de asco, sino que quieras leer aún más.

This book was fun to read and I enjoyed the little drawings as well. I will definitely be adding this to my fall book list.

I received a free eARC of from the author/publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This short poetry collection revolved around bones of the body as a way to explore themes of love, gender, sex, and death. I liked that each section was defined by a different bone, such as the mandible. There were also some beautiful lines, but on the whole I wasn't a huge fan because the collection falls into the horror genre. Still, it's a quick read, with vivid imagery.

This is a cutest, weirdest and short book about BONES! The poet covers a part of bones in our body and it weave with themes like romance, love, pain, sex and identity. It's a quick read and I enjoyed.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Clash Books for an advanced copy of this poetry collection.

Words have a meaning beyond what a writer first intends, what was once to explain the physical form are now used to discuss and explain the inner thoughts and outer heaviness. Phrases from anatomy books repurposed into new art and poems. Whiskey makes up a body and cyanide is the fuel for lost dreamers. Poet Holly Lyn Walrath has created a startling, intimate and anatomical collection of poems in The Smallest of Bones, using the sticks that hold up our skins, encasing our true nucleus and the pain it absorbs.

Some of her phrasing is memorable and mind blowing, others can be oh come on now. Noting is dull and the idea and work is very engaging. I can't wait to read more works by this poet, her love and use of words and how her mind works is inspiring.

The short poetry collection is as dark as it is compelling. I enjoyed reading this so much! I look forward reading more from Walrath.