*2.5

this one wasn't my favourite, but i still found a few poems that i liked! i'm sorry if i'm not that good at reviewing poetry collections, they're genuinely the hardest. 😂

the poems that i liked were: black is a place we carry, this heat is for feeling and i was there in the future. these were the ones that i enjoyed and appreciated! i could also relate to them which is always nice.

while it wasn't a favourite book, i'm still glad i read it!

Tuve sentimientos muy encontrados con este libro. Al principio me resultó algo incómodo, no sé si por lo directo del lenguaje o por cómo abordaba ciertos temas corporales—quizás fue más una incomodidad personal, pero sentí que la escritura en esa primera mitad necesitaba más pulido. Algunas piezas me parecieron algo simples o incluso trilladas, especialmente considerando la potencia del mensaje feminista que intenta transmitir.

Sin embargo, la segunda mitad me gustó bastante más. La prosa se volvió más ambigua y poética, pero al mismo tiempo más cercana a la realidad, lo que me permitió conectar mejor. En ese tramo, sentí que el estilo crecía y encontraba su voz.

Es un libro corto, así que no se pierde mucho dándole una oportunidad, pero no fue del todo lo que esperaba. Hay algunos buenos poemas, aunque en general no es mi tipo de poesía. Aun así, me interesa ver cómo evoluciona la autora en futuros trabajos.

The way that Bennett weaves words and stories is beautiful. Especially the series of poems that recall and connect the imagery of the loom are so powerful. She sits in her queerness and her Blackness in power, and brings to life the story of her chronic illness/cancer. "I suck my Achilles heel like a fetish," she writes, just as she also tells of apricot paint chips that bear no juice. Truly a lovely collection of poems.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book!

Have I found a new favorite poet to watch? Bloody (literally) and unapologetic! Bennett's collection not only screams feminist, but also healing through self-forgiveness. Each poem has such powerful lines that I wish I had the physical book to underline and highlight and mark with love! If you're a fan of Ocean Vuong, Andrea Gibson, or Jennifer Maritza McCauley, you'll enjoy Amanda Bennett.

Although I wish the description had set us up with what to expect (self-elegy, mental illness, family, motherhood?) rather than author blurbs, this is typical of poetry collections and the overall themes are quick to jump out. Bennett's enjambments and different forms create plenty of white space, visual interest, and makes her works fun to read aloud... as long as you're not reading through NetGalley's app. I've never been a fan of reading poetry through ebooks since formatting is often a large part of the form, but NetGalley's in-browser reader does a much better job at handling the enjambments. Poetry should be read more than once, and I'm ready to read this collection all over again.

Wow. I am at a loss of words after reading this book. The poems felt so raw and captivating at the same time and I was so inmersed that I could not stop reading. Once I connected with the verses… well, there was no turning point (and I mean it in a good way).

It's my first encounter with Amanda Bennett's work, and this collection does have some relatable poems.
Given that it is a short collection, I believe that most readers can get immersed in it, some of the poems that stood out for me were Black is a place we carry, Difficult women are like dynamite, Denial and Mojo Bag.
Thanks Netgalley for the eARC.

Great poems to discover Amanda Bennett. I loved the themes in the poems and how the woman’s body was used throughout it. It’s short so easy to read! I don’t read a lot of poetry so I fear I cannot judge it at its real value

Arc review.

This is a short poetry book.
There are not a lot of poems so it definitely worth a try!
It's not really my kind of poetry, and while reading the description I had different expectations.
But there are some good ones in there.

Thank you to everyone involved for the arc.

The collection's organizing metaphor—blood as "ligature" and "life force"—informs both content and form. Bennett's syntax flows with arterial urgency, creating a cascade effect where individual poems connect into a larger corporeal system. This linguistic embodiment transforms potentially abstract themes into physical encounters, where readers don't merely contemplate the body but inhabit its complexities.

Working The Roots is a beautiful poetry collection centred around self-love and appreciating the body you were given in every way. It's about womanhood and femininity in ways that are queer and loving and safe from the perspective of the writer. Amanda Bennett clearly honours herself, as an unapologetic and proud Black woman, in each piece she writes.

Thank you NetGalley for this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately this was not for me. I liked a few lines here and there, but overall I think it was a miss for me. Not what I was expecting when I read the blurb that said the reader would be “propelled into the visceral materiality of our lives, as she implores that we not only observe but celebrate the complexities of our existences.”

3.75✨

I have mixed feelings with this writing. I loved the poems but I felt like there was something missing. The poems were raw but for some reason most of the time the feelings and emotions didn't bleed through the words. Maybe it's because I'm not a black woman in her thirties and can't/don't relate to the struggles.

My favourite poems:
THE HEAT IS FOR FEELING
I WAS THERE IN THE FUTURE

Some quotes:
There is so much of me I am hard to dilute.
what we love comes most freely to a self cracked open with joy
our only task is to listen
What we carry is only as old as our youngest dreams long-lost but remembered at our first kiss.
Please don't see me this tiny pile of women

Overall it was a good creation. The poems got more intense the more I read and I started to feel some sort of a connection to the author.

Thank you Net Galley for the opportunity to read this book.

I had a rollercoaster of emotions with this book. The first half of the book made me, at first, a little uncomfortable. Maybe it's me being uncomfortable with my own body or maybe the writing was too straight forwrad for me... I am not sure. But the second half of the book I loved it, I think the writing improved a lot and the concepts became more vague but also so close to reality that I could feel much more engaged.

Art IS supposed to make you uncomfortable but I do believe the writing on the first part could have used a little more refining. Over all I liked it tho, would love to read more pieces from this author.

Thank you Netgalley, Querencia Press, and Amanda Bennett for sending me this advanced review copy for free. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This book does not hold back. It is raw, and holds so much weight. Full the heaviness of Black womanhood, and all that entails. There is a lot of blood on these pages, and a feeling of anger at times.

The poems varied in format, each one a little different with the spacing, punctuation, and whether letters are capitalized. I found that interesting, and gave them different vibes.

[2.5 stars rounded down]

A collection of 21 short poems, Working the Roots is an exploration of black womanhood, growing up, grief, and friendship. It is very short, around thirty pages total, and a nice and comfortable collection to weave in a poem or two a night. Though there are some gems of lines across the poems, most were very underwhelming and had a very first draft or notes app feeling to them.

My favorite was “TWENTIES CHILD”. I felt that the grief present in this poem (made even more explicit by the following five works being named after the stages of grief) came across beautifully. ”this is the child of my twenties//a small hard clump of cells//that multiplied as i divided myself//that grew as i shrank from who i was”, pushes the feeling of grief and longing for what could have been, interrupted by a newly found tumor, forward very well.

Quick taster of some more of my favorite bits:
• ”i thought being unreal would keep me safe//nobody hurts a hologram” (“HOLOGRAMS IN THE BUTTERMILK”) A perfect description of a rationalization of self isolation or hiding yourself from another of my favorites from the collection.
• ”for a while we were just faint strokes of memory//in a frame of white milk//we were there i knew underneath it all//but the pregnant gap between the moment and the memory it becomes is//a particular canal of agony” (“BLACK IS A PLACE WE CARRY”)I love this imagery of a polaroid developing.
• ”my life is just one tight tunnel of anxiety, one big fear of falling into the hole I’ve made for myself that fits just my body and not one ounce more” (“THIS HEAT IS FOR FEELING”) I love those last few words especially. Most writing about anxiety has becomes overdone to me at this point, but I think Bennett’s way of describing it as a sort of self fulfilling prophecy, complete with the imagery of digging your own grave, works wonderfully.
• ”my mother rested enough to give me life//i will rest enough to give you life//and you//and you//and you//and you//and me”(“REST IS THE PART IN THE WATERFALL”) (Side note: I love this title so much) The final lines of the collection end in a beautiful cushion as opposed to a bang. A very good note to leave us on.

Beyond these lines, most of this collection really did not stick out to me. For full disclosure, I am not the target audience of this poetry collection, being a nonblack man. Though I wholeheartedly believe that anyone can read any work regardless of topic, author, or target audience, there are just some things that will come through better to certain audiences over others. I think that this is partially what happened to me with this collection, but I also found some of the poems almost trite or just tired. I’ve read much better poems about many of these topics before and there is nothing new or impressive enough about what the author does with them to warrant much praise.

Alongside this, I personally prefer poems with stronger, more constricting structures. Of the few poems in this collection that are structured in stanzas, they have little rhyme or reason to determine where the blocking is. “DIFFICULT WOMEN ARE LIKE DYNAMITE” is an exception to this, as I greatly enjoyed the rhythm that the structure created. Beside these, the rest are written in paragraph format (usually just one long paragraph). These work better with Bennett’s style and lack of rhyme scheme and allow

A last comment that does not affect my rating but I wanted to include because it bothered me: I wish that the author could have provided a proper description to the story, as every listing for the collection only gives advanced reviews and praise. I’m sure that this is because there are still months until the book releases (at the time of writing this review), but it leaves me missing out on some of the context of the work. But, maybe the author wants readers to go in with no preconceived notions of what they are about to read.

If the mentioned themes or, especially, any of the quotes stick you to you, go for this collection. If not, though, than this is not a necessary collection to pick up by any means.

Though I appreciated the feminist message of this book of poems, I couldn't help but feel that a handful of the pieces were a bit trite.
My favorite line in the whole book was "she isn't a person yet because she is only colors"
My favorite poem is "Difficult Women Are Like Dynamite"