NetGalley Book Review: A Little Daylight Left by Sarah Kay

Are you familiar with the poet Sarah Kay?

If you’re thinking no, then the only right answer going forward is: not anymore.

I am proud to say I have always used Sarah’s live reading of her poem, “Brother,” in my Introduction to Creative Writing course at the end of my poetry unit. It’s a spectacular piece for my students to discuss, in performance and in mechanics. Her level of sentiment has always stuck with me, so when I recognized her name as an option for a NetGalley review, I jumped on applying for an ARC.

Sarah’s second full-length poetry collection, A Little Daylight Left, arrives a full decade after her acclaimed debut, No Matter the Wreckage. Over these ten years, Sarah notes on her Instagram that her poems have evolved as she has navigated life's transitions in early adulthood. The result is a powerful, introspective book. Her work in this collection captures human vulnerability, growth, and the courageous act of facing the uncertain spaces of our lives with tenderness and humor.

In over forty poems - across three carefully curated parts - A Little Daylight Left invites us to explore the fragility and strength that exist in each of us.


Her Chosen Themes & Their Emotional Impact

Sarah beautifully tackles the most human themes: nostalgia, family, loss, love, and self-discovery. She frequently captures the bittersweet feeling of holding tightly onto fleeting moments of joy, despite - or perhaps because of - their transitory nature. Poems such as "Allow Me Just This One" resonated deeply for me because of its vulnerability.

As I continued to read, it was clear that Sarah has a gift for articulating complex feelings with simplicity and grace. It reminded me that we are never alone in our uncertainties or joys.


Her Craft & Poetic Techniques

The collection showcases a rich variety of poetic forms, including free verse, sonnets, prose poems, and even ars poetica. As a reader and writer who appreciates variety, this approach was right up my creative alley. I found myself not only reflecting on her chosen themes, but also pausing to appreciate her experimentation. Sarah often playfully bends and breaks rules to enhance the emotional impact of her poems. Her experimentation with form and white space, evident in pieces like "The Poet's Father Wakes in a Cold Sweat," makes them hit that much harder.

​I’m sure that reading digitally slightly altered my experience, as the physical format probably enhances Sarah’s thoughtful choices around white space, italics, indentations, and refrains. I’d recommend purchasing the physical copy to fully experience the sensory and emotional intentions of Sarah’s clearly meticulous formatting decisions.


The Collection’s Standout Poems & Lines

Each section had its treasures. Part 1 opens strikingly with "Ode to the Two Girls in the Outfield of the Tee Ball Game" - a true and immediate immersion in nostalgia. "I Am Seventeen & Everyone" captured my attention through the intentional offset stanza, which broke the poem open in a new way, creating a lasting visual and emotional impact.
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In Part 2, the poem "Table Games" stood out for its rhythmic dialogue and poignant questions, while "To Whoever Broke into the Rental Car & Stole My Vibrator" unexpectedly delivered one of my favorite lines from the entire collection: "Sometimes I envy your ability to take" - the spacing true to the line itself (I told you, she experiments with white space!). For me, this closing line captures Sarah’s strength as a poet: her remarkable ability to bring us into the stories of her life while distilling complex emotions into concise, compelling statements.

​For me, Part 3 deepens in introspection and emotional revelation, beginning with "Unreliable." I was hooked by the first line, since the poem cleverly invokes the concept of unreliable narrators. As both a reader and writer, the idea of this alone made me curious and inspired. Nevertheless, I continued on. Throughout this section as a whole, Sarah continues to bravely lay bare elements of her life, relationships, and internal dialogues.
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Part 1 to Part 3 is an emotional evolution, indeed.


Final Thoughts

Sarah’s voice feels authentic, warm, and engagingly conversational. As a reader, I felt close to her, almost like a companion. I think readers familiar with her will recognize her signature blend of tenderness, wisdom, and humor. Even as she delves into heavier topics, her voice maintains a comforting, approachable quality, making each poem feel personal and genuinely heartfelt.

Overall, A Little Daylight Left is a deeply compassionate collection, and one I recommend for anyone who finds beauty in reflecting on their own life journeys. Readers who enjoy poetry that invites contemplation, celebrates vulnerability, and finds wonder in everyday moments will find much to treasure. Those who often find themselves revisiting memories, seeking connections, or examining their evolving identity will particularly resonate with Sarah’s heartfelt explorations.

She’s just that good. Truly.

As someone who frequently looks to poetry to process and reminisce, I found myself wanting even more of Sarah Kay’s creative and emotional depth—beyond what she's already so generously provided here. It’s a poetry collection worth savoring, sharing, and revisiting. I’m excited to have my own physical copy since it publishes on April 1!

This was such a fantastic collection of poems. They were full of emotions and many of them felt relatable. Not to mention the writing itself was beautiful and readable. Sometimes poetry can be difficult for me but this was a great collection.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Sarah Kay for providing me with a complimentary digital ARC for A Little Daylight Left coming out April 1, 2025. The honest opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I received this directly from NetGalley. I’m not familiar with her work. I enjoy poetry, but I’m not obsessed with it. I’m more into the classic poetry. But I’ll read modern poetry if it’s available. I really enjoyed some of the poems more than others. I wasn’t a fan of some of the topics. I think it’s a great collection though. It was definitely a fast read.

I really enjoyed this collection of poems and couldn't put it down until I finished it in one reading session. The writing was powerful and vulnerable, with hints of nostalgia, sorrow, and anger. I found quite a few poems very relatable, and were able to capture feelings I too had, but was not able to put into words. I felt seen. Kay's ability to take topics that seem unrelated to one another, but entwine them in the end was really enjoyable to read. This was my introduction to Sarah Kay and I look forward to reading more of her poetry in the future.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love getting lost in a book of poetry. Sarah Kay has a beautiful way of looking at the world but I’m afraid her style just isn’t for me. I have no experience with her prior work but I hear that her spoken word may be more impactful to an audience member like me who doesn’t love poetry written in long run on sentences/thoughts. I can’t connect with a lot of poems about fertility or children so those topics definitely disconnected me from the work on occasion. Overall a few great poems with a couple of phrases I enjoyed but the book overall just didn’t hit me in a memorable way.

The Dial Press eARC
This was a beautiful collection of poetry that showed such a range of human emotions as the author wrote about her life experiences. I loved the insight and rawness she brought to these poems. There are some that I will be thinking about long term. I think what made this collection work so well for me was not that I could relate to every single thing, but that she wasn't afraid to put her entire self on the page. I enjoyed the growth and reflections here. I enjoyed the wondering and just sitting in emotions. It was well done and I look forward to reading more from this poet.

Wow, I wanted to read this slowly, but it's so difficult to put down! Each poem is deeply impactful and showcases a completely different complex emotion and relatable experience. It's dark, yearnful, hopeful, nostalgic, and yet, at some parts, light and airy. Unlike many poetry books that have a consistent theme that can sometimes become too heavy to read for a long period of time, this ebbs and flows beautifully from one concept to the next.

This book will be released April 1st, 2025, and I'm sad I can't include any quotes in the review until then. There are so many worth sharing, remembering, and holding on to. I plan to reread this time and time again. This book is for anyone who enjoys beautiful words and shared experiences.

Thank you, NetGalley and Random House Publishing, for the opportunity to read an advanced reader's copy in exchange for my honest review.

I enjoyed the poems in A Little Daylight Left, they are well written, readable and moving. Some are light and humorous and some touch on the disturbing.
They read like poem/prose and I liked that.

I stopped reading this collection because of disturbing content. I would like for there to be content trigger warnings so I knew what to skip.

Beautiful book of poetry about love, grief and living. Moving from childhood to adulthood in poems made this a quick read but very moving!

I’m still fairly new to reading poetry, but I really enjoyed this collection. I’ve never read anything by Sarah Kay before, now I am eager to see what other works they have available.

Some of these poems didn’t fully resonate with me, which is to be expected. Others were a punch to the gut. Giving me that heavy feeing in my stomach, full of grief or sorrow. I could FEEL them.

This is definitely a collection I would recommend to poetry loving friends. I will also be rereading the poems that I really enjoyed.

This is the feeling I will chase each time I pick up a new collection. It was full of cheeky, sad, happy, and relatable poems that were so vivid in my mind. The second section is where I really fell in love with Sarah’s writing and knew she would be a new favorite. I really enjoyed and related to many of the themes present in this collection (love, loss, friendship, creativity, grief), and loved her descriptive word choice combined with the purposeful layout/rhythm. I don’t think I’ll ever stop thinking about this one.

Some favorite quotes:

“& if your old friend ever picked up the phone again
you would say wherever
you've been
was where you
needed to be
& whoever you
are now
welcome
back, beloved.”

“I could learn to be patient if
I knew
there would always be a you to love”

My favorite poems were:
- RACCOON
- WORH CELEBRATING
- BEGINNING IS A SEASON
- ON THE DAYING APP I SELECT FROM THE DROPDOWN MENU TO INDICATE I TOO LIKE BEACHES
- PRAISE MY TINY KITCHEN
- DREAMING BOY
- TABLE GAMES
- ORANGE
- SONNET FOR POP
- SHARPSHOOTERS
- ALLOW ME JUST THIS ONE
- EACH IF US HERE
- WHOEVER BROKE INTO THE RENTAL CAR AND STOLE MY VIBRATOR
- NATURE VS NURTURE
- TSUBU
- JELLO
- DEVOTED
- EPITHALAMION
- MILES FROM SNY SHORELINE

This type of poetry is not for me. The specificity read too flowery and young, like a college student attending her first English workshop and wanting to prove how smart she is.

Sometimes I find it challenging to review a book of poetry, but A Little Daylight Left really struck a chord with me. I've been feeling very introspective and slightly melancholy lately, and these poems just spoke to my soul and resonated with me. Yes, these poems describe difficult times, but also how we make it through changed and stronger. Thanks to NetGalley and The Dial Press for the ARC.

"A Little Daylight Left" begins with poetry which depicts the process in which the naïveté of childhood slowly disappears as you reach adulthood. As I read through the beginning of this collection, I really resonated with the message of realizing the moment when you are finally old enough that you suddenly become the adult that you once relied on when you were a child: and now there will be young people looking to you for answers for the rest of your life. I think that Kay describes this collection of poetry very well when she states later on in one of the poems: "If there was a girl scout badge for ease with human vulnerability I think I could earn it". A very accurate description of this collection is "vulnerability", which is something that I really gravitate towards when reading poetry. "A Little Daylight Left" includes poems that discuss coping with the pain of grief and of heartbreak; the pain of transitioning into new phases of life; the pain of self-doubt and of realizing your body isn't going to cooperate with you. Different poems will surely resonate with different people, and I connected with a good portion of this collection. Thank you to NetGalley, The Dial Press, and Sarah Kay for providing an early digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!

Sarah Kay is an intricate storyteller. I can picture every poem as if I was in the room and while I’m there she always makes my heart ache in the best way.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin for an advanced copy.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for access to this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

As an English teacher, I adore Sarah Kay, mostly for her spoken word videos, which I show my students when we tackle slam/spoken word poetry. A Little Daylight Left is full of heart and reflection on love, grief, and living. This poetry collection, Kay's second full-length publication, is one that I read slowly. It is divided into three sections, and so I would read a section per night and sometimes I would pause to allow the words to sink in.

I rate the collection 3 stars because, while the poetry was moving, I feel it would have impacted me more if I had heard Sarah Kay read it. That is more about her writing style. The poet tends to use "enjambment" where there is no punctuation, making everything feel like a run-on sentence. I am not accustomed to reading poetry like that, so I think some poems failed to resonate with me.

Overall, a bit of a mixed bag but I would still recommend it to students and friends that enjoy poets who experiment with different styles.


#ALittleDaylightLeft #NetGalley.
Expected Publication 01/04/25
Goodreads Review 11/03/25

I enjoyed this book of poetry and connected with many of the poems. This was my first encounter with Sarah Kay’s poems and I’m eager to read more.

Fans who have waited for Sarah Kay’s second full-length collection will not be disappointed. Equal parts hurt and hopeful, Kay’s words will resonate deep in that place in your chest where you try to hide the things you don’t want to feel. This collection contains a poem for every emotion, and I highly recommend reading.

Wow! This is my first encounter with a work by Sarah Kay and let me just say I was not disappointed. Their work is really good and a nice change of pace after going through a reading slump! Thank you to NetGalley and Sarah Kay’s publishing house for the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review! 4/5 stars ⭐️