This fantastical and haunting collection takes the reader through the separation of body and spirit through trauma. As someone who's experienced trauma as a child, I built mythical worlds in my mind to escape and survive. This collection illustrates the beauty and sadness of these worlds, that become increasingly hard to leave when we grow up.

This was a cleverly put together poetry collection, exploring the body through different forms. It’s hard to explain and for me to put into words, but it was about so much more than what we think of as the body.

I loved some poems and didn’t relate to others. But overall, it was thought provoking, interesting and different to other collections. The writing was beautifully put together, adding layers of emotions to the ideas behind each poem. This is definitely a worthy book to add to your collection if you love poetry.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and publisher, for a chance to read and review this book.

I have to preface by saying that, although I do enjoy poetry when I come across it, I am not an avid reader of poetry by a long shot. Escaping the Body may have changed that, for me.

Clark hits it out of the park from the very first poem (which, I think, still remains my favourite of the whole collection) and keeps the quality and beauty of her words consistent throughout the book. Her inspirations (space, the body, even - I think - death and murder) are clear and her musings on them are thought-provoking.

There's not a whole lot more that I need to say about the collection; just do yourself a favour and read it. I was genuinely moved by a great many of these poems and can't wait to check out Clark's other works.

Dnfed at 81%
I'm sorry I truly tried to just finish this poetry collection but I just couldn't do it. I don't even know what exactly made me dislike this collection so much but I just couldn't finish. It put me in a reading slump and honestly it was just extremely boring. I will say that there was one poem that I really did enjoy but all the others just weren't of my personal taste. As always when I dnf a book I will be giving it a 3-star rating as I don't believe in giving a book lower than 3 stars when you don't finish.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this eArc in exchange for an honest review.

ARC provided by netgalley.

My 1st time reading poetry after I've left school. Although I enjoyed some of the poetry some I didn't feel I had any connection with.

Regardless the writing and feelings I felt was good.

I hardly enjoyed this. It was repetitive (and not in a good way) and the poems ran into each other with hardly any distinction. You read one poem, you read them all. There was only one or two poems that I actually found enjoyable.

An absolutely gorgeous, stunning and collection of free verse poetry. Every poem stands on its own but read together tells a moving narrative of loss, and healing.

This is an outstanding book of poetry. Moving, provocative, thoughtful, and compelling, the poems here move in and around the body and the world around bodies, helping readers envision things in new ways. The language and imagery is unique and well-honed, and I especially enjoyed the references to and ideas prompted by fairy tales and the gothic.

"My body is always ready
to run, to catch, to save
but has a harder time
to settle, to want, to hold."

A beautiful collection of poetry that creates such wonderful imagery and flows so steadily from one poem to the next. Read in one sitting and loved so many poems from the collection!

Thank you so much to the publishers for providing me with an eArc in exchange for my review!

Thank you to NetGalley for access to this title in exchange for a honest review!!

I genuinely enjoyed this collection so much.

I found the writing style so easy to get lost in, and often would find myself seemingly experiencing things alongside the author with the such vivid descriptions.

I am eager to look into more of this writer’s work and am so glad to have found this collection!

I think I just didn't connect with it because I had just read another book of poetry that moved me more.

Several poems in this collection come back to the theme of escape and escaping the body. However, I also found it interesting how many of the poems dwell continuously on and circle back to the body, showing the body as a place that cannot be escaped even as it changes and decays to bones. Personally, I loved the speculative aspect of this collection.

Great collection of poems, strong and powerful wording from a brilliant author. Throughly enjoyed this book.

content warnings: sexual assault, death, sexual content, body horror (nails/skin/veins/broken fingers/bruises), grief, loss, trauma

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Although this is not Chloe N. Clark’s first poetry collection, Escaping the Body is the first of her work that I have consumed. With diverse themes such as trauma, loss and the body, this collection left me with a nostalgic feeling, verging on melancholy.

The imagery was vivid and vulnerable, each poem beautifully written and relatable. There were some parts that felt repetitive, especially toward the middle, but with a style more narrative than descriptive, this collection was able to hold my attention to the very last word. The references to science fiction and horror as well as the homages to Houdini helped with that.

Overall, I truly enjoyed this poetry collection and can’t wait to pick up more of Chloe N. Clark’s work.

I absolutely loved this poetry collection! The writing is beautiful, vivid and sensorial. So many vivid images came to my head while reading this poems, that encompass so many human emotions. I found it very diverse in themes and imagery, loved the references to sci fi, horror and historical figures. This was the first work I read by this author, but it will certainly not be the last.
Thanks to Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to review this amazing work!

This entire collection of poetry is a love letter to surviving trauma. The poems can easily be read as standalone pieces but as a cohesive read, readers explore the tangible trauma a person can endure, as well as the things that go bump in the night that we can't see but we feel is there.

4/5⭐️ I enjoyed this book of poetry. I liked the horror and sci-fi themes. Very simple prose that didn’t feel too heavy.

i would read this again and again… and i did just that. these poems are beautiful, deep, emotional, ethereal, and out of body. i will not only purchase it i will purchase multiple copies and give them out to all the people i love in my life. a must read for anyone trying to make sense of themselves, life, and the in between.

Escaping the Body: Poems was the first collection by Chloe N. Clark I’ve read, and it will definitely not be the last. Her writing is gorgeous and evocative.

It’s true that a lot of the poems in this collection do come back to the theme of escape and escaping the body, but I also found it interesting how many of the poems dwell continuously on and circle back to the body, showing the body as a place which can’t be escaped even as it changes and decays to bones. Even in the poems where escape from circumstances, temporarily cheating death, or transcending the body are possible, you can’t fully escape yourself. Reading this collection definitely made me think more about what it means to exist in a body, about what it means to exist as a sentient being, and the unease which we thinking creatures feel when we think about ourselves as vulnerable bodies.

I also loved the variety of poems in this collection which range from surreal, to mythical, to sci-fi, to horror, to science, to homages to Houdini. Many of the poems are multi-genre or genre-blurring. I did go into this collection expecting every poem to be more horror-oriented (because it came up under horror on my search results), and if you’re only interested in horror and horror-adjacent poetry, you may not like all the poems in this collection.

In addition to variety in genre, this collection also varies significantly in form and tone from more prose poems which tell a narrative to very threadbare poems which focus on a specific moment or feeling. It takes a lot of confidence and talent to play so effortlessly with form and style.

Overall, this is one of the best single-author poetry collections I’ve read.

My Favorite poems were: “Questions We Asked for the Girls Turned to Limbs,” “Missing Girl Found–,” “I was Planning on Learning to Breathe Today,” “What the Earth Returns to Our Mouths,” “Osteomancy,” “Lacunae,” “Grow Your Own Little Forest,” and “Ends and Ends” (which is an excellent concluding piece).

I received a copy of this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This isn't Chloe N. Clark's first poetry collection, but this is my first time experiencing her words. With this, I learned three things: first, Clark knows how to title her works. I was just nodding my head with a stupid smile on my face as I scrolled through the contents. Second, it's quite a long collection which makes some concepts slightly repetitive. Because the collection spans through five parts, it cannot go unnoticed that some parts just stand out among others, in terms of both idea and execution. Then again, this happens almost every time. Third and last, the language used is very accessible indeed. It's more narrative than descriptive, but I think it's something that can consequently be enjoyed by avid poetry fans, considering Clark's talent in word-weaving. That being said, this is the type of poetry collection I would recommend especially to those who want to get into poetry but do not know where to start.

Thank you, NetGalley and Interstellar Flight Press, for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.