A very beautiful poetry collection. Especially loved the Midsommar poem. I’m not super well-versed (lol) on poetry, but I found this one to pull on my heartstrings quite a bit. Felt like Manhattan at 6am, very nostalgic for me.

This collection of poems has a bit of everything. Are you horny? Are you sad? Are you sad and horny? Are you happy? Are you considering your place in the universe? Are you tired? Are you horny and tired? So many of the poems had clever turns, clever observations, that I enjoyed spending some time with them.

Thanks for the ARC.

Thank you to Haymarket Books and Netgalley for this e-ARC. This is an honest review and all opinions in it are my own.

What We Do With God is an equal parts realistic and surrealistic poetry collection. It discusses a dysfunctional childhood, generational trauma, dead parents, religious questioning, sexual assault, psychosis and much much more with great vigour.

I LOVED every single poem, some of them particular favorites, like The Man I Do Not Sleep With, or God Is Dog Spelled Backward. Poems could be both funny and/or emotional, simple and clear to read/understand but also use very strong imagery, surrealism to represent the real, and innovative descriptions. Take you along some twists and turns but never did it lose me. Occasionally heavy and tragic, occasionally floating above the page with an air of bittersweetness.

The style of poetry is of course its own, but does remind me a little bit of my favorites Ada Limón and Mona Arshi. The many creatures, cranes, bugs, suns, sky-mothers, waves and water. Metaphors with surreal and magical implications. The storytelling/throughline which was always tightly strung and tied up nicely at the end of every poem. Imagery which always made sense to me – even when the point was to not make sense, as it was psychosis – and was recurring, at just the right amounts within poems and in the collection as a whole. Familiar, yet not too repetitive.

The feminist, religious themes, complicated families, and its storytelling also invoke Warsan Shire. Culturally relevant and descriptive – both in relation to pop-culture, but also Puerto Rican, Iranian, Russian culture.

The form was greatly utilized. Verses were well-structured and the patterns only broken when it served a purpose. Enjambment easy to follow, well-placed line breaks and punctuation. A certain sense of rhythm that served the story. Tension which just rose and rose and made my heart race every single time. Perfect phrasing honestly.

I connected really strongly with it, as Toosie-Watson was able to build up the emotions really well. Through glimpses of truth, of the voice’s inner world (which was very clearly embodied), through highly-relevant metaphors, particular word choices, magical descriptions, and thoroughly letting us into the room so we could imagine the situation, even when we weren’t told *the whole truth* from the beginning, nor exactly what we should feel (which would’ve been bad form tbh.)

I did tear up, but I did also let out a little chuckle at times, ok!

Without giving too much away, I’ll quote a few bits below:

“And then, you are a man. Where did your scales go? Those little sequins that splayed sunbeams like a fillet blade?”

“My pills keep vigil from my bookshelf. There are so many. I would take them all at once, but my niece is six and I braid her hair best.”

“The sun is a cigarette in the morning’s mouth”

“God is a god of little deaths. I die all the time. Except when God won’t let me. Isn’t it funny?”

“Alive Dad would be pissed if he knew Mom saw his Dead Dad ghost in our living room. Joke’s on you, white, glasses-wearing, Jesus-loving Alive Dad. Dead Dad knows how to take a Joke. Knock, knock. It’s Jesus, back from hell.”

In all this it lays bare a will to live alongside an equally tantalising will to die. (Which I related so much to, with my past, without getting too personal).

I literally have no notes. Well, I have a lot of notes, but no criticisms personally, no faults. This is now one of my favorite poetry collections of all time, and I’ll wait (not so patiently) for the release date so I can get a physical copy and underline the hell out of it!!

This review is also on my Goodreads, and I will post about it on my Instagram. Closer to the release date in September (or once I have a physical copy) I will post some kind of in-depth review / analysis on Medium.

I really wanted to like this but I had a hard time getting through it. There were some parts that felt like they would be relatable and then it'd throw a 180 in there and then I couldn't follow. I found myself, more than a couple times, re-reading because I felt I missed something. I also felt the formatting was a little off and it was hard to tell if it was author's choice or had to do with the format it was in, but given some of the poems felt jumbled, I wasn't sure which option it was.

One of the tips I kept seeing online for getting free books was signing up for advance reader copies (ARCs) of books. Frankly, that feels like cheating to me, unless it’s done in service to the author. I believe the only way I can justifiably pursue that option is to provide reviews of the ARCs I received. Fortunately, I run a book blog, soooooo that works out really well. Here is my review of the first ARC I’ve received: What We Do With God, a poetry book by Daniella Toosie-Watson that will be published September 9, 2025 by Haymarket Books.

Toosie, as she* is mononymously called on her website, is a poet, visual artist, and educator. Although her works have been published multiple times elsewhere, What We Do With God is her first collection and serves as her memoir. In Toosie’s poems and prose, she dives deep into her personal experiences with sex, abuse, psychosis (and the subsequent treatment by the mental healthcare system), and religion. She is informed by her Puerto Rican, Iranian, and Russian heritage and the mysticism therein; her mother also saw “visions” and encouraged Toosie to consider them as gifts.

One of the things that I enjoy about the poems in this book is that they are unflinchingly sensual. Toosie explores her personal pleasure and how it is tied to the world at large. A beautiful example of this is “A Series of Small Miracles,” in which she celebrates the shape of her body and how she does not need the validation of men to feel happy in her skin. Another example is found in the piece “On Flashbacks: Or, When a Chickadee Sings Chickadee, She Knows Something is Trying to Kill Her.” In this poem, she tells of being gripped by waves of emotion, the ebb and flow of feelings for a man, whom she fears will be violent if she does not love him back, and her neighbor, a woman with a beautiful singing voice. Can I completely define the poet’s intent? Nah, probably not, but I can give you my read on it: Toosie’s poems shine a light on the small and the so-called shameful; she reveres that which is considered by society as irreverent or insignificant, and vice-versa.

Additionally, Toosie has perfected the use of metaphor and simile. In her poem “Thank You for Touching Me,” I was enamored by the evocative line God replies to prayers like a drunk man stumbling out of a cab at 2 a.m. Another striking example is in “The Obsession to Be Good”: I’m a dog’s wet mouth. I wag my fast tail at everyone’s man. Toosie describes the sky as sorbet clouds spill across the expanse like God / were a messy child eating ice cream in the aforementioned “On Flashbacks.” The use of metaphor and simile in this book pull forward the grimy, sultry, and awe-inspiring pieces of the world around the poet.

This book is a welcome departure from the saccharine romanticism of the dark parts of being alive. It forces the reader to look in the face of the author and all others like her as they say, “I have been through pain and suffering, and I am still here, and I am still worthy.” And don’t we need that right now? Don’t we all see ourselves in their faces in some way or another? For those of us who have experienced mental illness, assault, and generational trauma, these poems connect us. One word for Toosie: Brava!

*Note: Daniella Toosie-Watson uses she/they pronouns. I have opted to use “she” throughout this review for consistency.

3.5/5 - this was a quick read but I enjoyed the poems and the flow of most of them. I didn't connect necessarily with all of them but a few of them really hit me to the point where I had to walk away for a minute to digest it. Overall a good collection of poems.

Thank you Netgalley, Haymarket Books, and Daniella Toosie-Watson for sending me this advanced review copy for free. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Unfortunately I could not get into this one at all. It was more like tiny essays.

In one of the first poems we went from writing about an animal being torn apart by dogs, to loved one dying from hitting their head on a radiator, to writing about the first time they bought and used a vibrating device to pleasure herself, all in the same poem. Most of the poems were like this, jumping from one unrelated thought to another, with nothing to join them together. There was no rhyme or reason to it, and the constant undercurrent of violence and death were hard to read. It was a much darker book than I expected.

This is an unusual collection of poetry. I didn't feel as much as I'd have liked to while reading the poems, but I think poetry is subjective and I appreciated the subject matter. I strongly believe that poetry is a great outlet for mental health struggles.

My thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC

I had a hard time getting through it.

The poetry didn't feel like poetry, it felt more like word vomit. The author added explicit words and sentences at random times in a poem that weren't necessary, and none of the poems had any real meaning. They were all kind of jumbled together.

I really wanted to love this!