This poetry was all over the place. I couldn’t find a consistent through line to follow. It was like being lost at sea with no land in sight.

I didn't quit enjoy this book . This maybe because of my super specific taste in modern poetry but overall this book was very short , easy to read , the udea and conceot was important but I felt that as a person who did not speak the second language that the autgor used throughout the book it was hard for me to fully interpret the author's poems .

Poetry from a culture other than one’s own can be incredibly difficult. The cadences and references fall on a completely unfamiliar ear, and one is uncertain in attempts to connect and make meaning. Afiriyie-Hwedie’s collection has moments of distilled poignancy as well as sections that seem overworked and insular. The voice of a young person seeking identity across cultures and within the tenets of Christianity will resonate with some contemporary readers. On the whole, this one was just ok for me.

Thank you to Akosua Zimba Afiriyie-Hwedie, Button Poetry, and NetGalley for an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

"Born in a second language" is a beautiful, raw, and unapologetic poetry collection with very powerful subjects about identity, language, and what we consider home when we come from a multicultural background. Some poems spoke directly to my heart and others didn't, but overall it was a very beautiful and lyrical experience.

Thank you to Netgalley for this arc ebook in exchange for an honest review.

This review is based on NetGalley ARC provided in exchange for an honest, unbiased opinion. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher!

‘Born in a Second Language’ is a collection of poetry centered around language and its connections to one’s identity, from a multicultural standpoint. It beautifully yet bluntly deals with themes such as identity, belonging, racism and multiculturalism. It drives home the message that language is not only about communication, but it is also an important part of who we are, especially for those who have had to leave their homelands behind. I had such a good time reading this book, and I highly recommend it!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book of poetry. Afiriyie-Hwedie is a Zambian- Ghanaian poet who grew up in Botswana and has lived in the USA too. In this collection she explores themes of identity, belonging and what it means to be multicultural and live a life of belonging that spans countries, languages and heritage.

What I really loved about this book is it’s extremely new and inventive in style. The poet is very courageous with playing around with structure and bringing in various different elements (immigration forms, numbering, short poems, essay type poems…) and it really works well. I loved how not only does she talk about a variety of languages and multiculturalism but she brings that into her poetry too with the vast amount of different poetry types. She’s extremely good at vividly portraying situations, stories in a few words and making the reader think about the world around them and what makes it up. I really hope that she writes a lot more poetry!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks Netgalley for ARC copy.

It's very peculiar kind of poetry book. In beginning I didn't like it though , it has numerous deep emotional poems.

Overall I wouldn't recommend it to read.

Incredibly moving. I will be buying copies for my friends, even though they are monolinguals. The hierarchy of English is something that infuriates me on a cellular level. Although I am a native English speaker, I do speak two additional languages (not as a heritage speaker). I do feel a different connection to different words based on the language that I’m speaking, so I was able to personally connect to multiple poems.
Thank you to Netgalley for this arc ebook in exchange for an honest review.

This was a really beautiful and evocative collection about language and cultural identity, and how America (and the white Western world in general) seeks to dampen both. Afiriyie-Hwedie's language here is really just phenomenal; she has an almost supernatural ability to tell the story of a whole life in one line of poetry, and although this collection is very short it feels complete, like not a single page or word is wasted. All the poems here are tightly crafted and layered with so many meanings that I think you could probably read this entire collection cover to cover multiple times and have a different experience every time.

Having said that, I did find some of the poems were a little hard to parse and I wasn't sure I fully comprehended all of them, but I chalked that up to the poet's experience being so very different from mine; there are things she's experienced and writes about that are a completely new frame of reference for me, a white monoglot who's lived in the same country my whole life. I still enjoyed the language of the poems, even those I didn't entirely understand.

As far as poetry collections go, this is one of the most impressive in terms of poetic technique and language that I've read this year, and it's obvious that Afiriyie-Hwedie is one of those poets who's going to end up on every MFA syllabus going, and she should.

The title piqued my interest as someone who bilingualism is a huge part of identity. However, my bilingual experience is from two colonizer languages; the author's is not. Even so, I still related to some of the poems like I am deciding which language to spend the night in, and as for other poems I wasn't be able to relate to, I could empathize. So even when she spoke of religion that I don't partake in, the author could still make me put my feet in her shoes and understand.

The poems were thoughtful and powerful, yet in a delicate manner. The author reflects on home, belonging, God, and immigration in this short anthology. Overall, lovely quick read that I think anyone could enjoy.

This is a short but memorable collection of poetry about the ways in which colonialism and white supremacy have and continue to erase the languages and cultures of immigrants, and how Black people are still forced to conform to "perfect English" which cannot be broken English or African-American Vernacular English, which are looked down upon and seen as less intelligent.

Afiriyie-Hwedie discusses the difficulties and trauma caused by losing connection to the language of your family and ancestors to fit in in America, and the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that white people continue to enforce these things on immigrants, particularly immigrants of colour. It was a thought-provoking and heartbreakingly honest exploration of what it means to be caught between two cultures.

Can't open the version given to me but it lools fantastic. I love books related to language and especially language learning and culture.

This book is a collection of 36 poems, which reflect the experience of losing your native language, feeling foreign in your own culture and of not belonging. It is broad enough to encompass the general immigrant experience, but also has a distinctly local feeling of Zambia/Ghana/Botswana.
The poems which spoke the most to me were "for those for whom this need not be translated", "Port of Entry", "Setswana lesson" and "Provenance". It is beautifully written and leaves the reader thoughtful afterwards.

Thank you NetGalley and ButtonPoetry for this eARC.

A short poetry anthology written by, and for, people who each foot in a different culture.

It really spoke to me, especially the immigration form poem.

This was a gorgeous poetry collection that deals with very powerful subjects including language and the dilution of language through translation, immigration and family

Akosua Zimba Afiriyie-Hwedie has written a provocative book of poetry. Originally from Botswana, Ms. Afiriyie-Hwedie has a Masters of Fine Arts degree from the University of Michigan. Her poetry speaks of finding her way through American life as an immigrant, a woman, and a speaker of many languages. I want to return to her poetry many times. I particularly enjoyed the following

it goes without saying (the first lines follow)
"My British English troubles my American English
I pause before I say words like 'be-u-tea-ful
Confused by how I learned to say it in Botswana . . . . .

Outdooring Ceremony
"If the ocean is always ahead of itself,
did it foresee its naming?
Did it foresee how it would become what it was called?

I liked her poetry immensely and recommend it to you. I want to thank NetGalley and Button Poetry for the chance to read and review.

4 stars

Evocative poems about identity, language, music, & home. I felt every one.

[What I liked:]

•I enjoyed learning about the poet’s languages, Twi & Setswana & Nyanja & English. The way she wove the ideas & sounds of them together enriches everything. She really gets across how language is tied to home & relationships & places & identities, how it shapes us as people, how it’s so much more than just words.

•I felt every single one of these poems. They have such a strong sense of being, a life force that transcends time: the poet is a smiling school girl & a fierce woman. Her connections to her family, especially to her mother & grandmother, are so vital in these poems. The words & ideas feel so real, but in a precious & special way.

•The writing is wonderful. No words are wasted. Each line peels back a layer so you can see inward, builds up a layer so you can climb high. The poems are evocative & rich.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•Some of the more experimental formats I had a harder time engaging with. For example, “Please Select the Best Answer” looks like a flow chart, but I couldn’t figure out how it was meant to be read (what sequence, how things connected). I still got meaning out of it, but I’m wondering if I missed something.

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]