4 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

A powerful coming of age story told in time. Though it took me a few poems to adjust to Cravens’ quirky, disjointed way of describing her experiences, I came to appreciate the unexpected ways in which her stories unfold. I am only newly into poetry but I thoroughly enjoyed this collection.

I really wanted to get into this set of poems but I had a difficult time connecting with the pieces. It's clear that Cravens has such skill with forming prose, but this unfortunately wan't a book for me. Would still recommend it to others looking for unique poems.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for this ARC!

This is a good collection of poems about the uncertainties of growing into adulthood, as well as taking things from the past and learning from it. These poems are brief but effective, and they have a ton of lines that held a lot of meaning, which I really loved. Personally, I couldn’t connect very much with the pieces, but they are well written nonetheless.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC!

Madeleine Cravens’s "Pleasure Principle" is an exceptional and enigmatic debut.

These poems position intimacy as a tension between time and space, and Cravens writes with an almost mystical voice, the way someone will volunteer a memory before realizing they don’t understand its significance. The speaker in these pieces often shares fractured details, aware they are meaningful but uncertain as to why.

The collection is preoccupied with discontinuity in time. Or, perhaps more accurately, preoccupied with how time is an unstable measurement, incapable of containing everything it’s intended to. Readers encounter granular moments against historical grandiosity, as seen in this line from the titular poem: “Sweet post-nasal drip. Years unwound quickly.” We can feel the speaker almost woozily trying to find some sense of balance, parsing the difference between momentum and entropy.

Similarly, these poems are constantly on the move, with many of their titles bearing the names of actual places. The speaker seems to be constantly migrating, but to where? It seems that if the speaker remains in motion, she never has to question whether there is direction to her movement. The only guarantee is that intimacy and mobility are inseparable, albeit in ambiguous tension. It’s a crystalline portrait of early adulthood, and the speaker’s confident uncertainty animates the whole collection without a single dip in energy.

All in all, this is a really exciting collection, and—more importantly—it is exceptionally focused in its themes and content. It's rare for a debut collection to have such a clear and singular vision, but Madeleine Cravens is achingly precise in her work. I highly recommend!

I love reading poetry but I often feel like I am not qualified to review it. Poetry is so deeply rooted to one person, it's one person's story written in one person's personal understanding and basically their language. And it's not for me to say if it was good or not. I feel like I'm in highschool dissecting the meaning of every word if I were to do so. I connected with some poems more than I did others, it was a great compilation.

An emotional debut with an incredible mastery of language, Madeleine Cravens' collection will resonate with readers long after they've finished the last poem. Cravens is a must-watch poet, and Pleasure Principle is a must-read for all lovers of poetry.

I love the language play and sense of narrative propulsion. Yes, in poetry! Not just for prose. I appreciated Cravens' meta-commentary and beautiful language and depth of investigation. This collection feels fresh, and I know I'll return to it. Thank you.

Really good prose and stunning poetry. I liked the author's experiences and reading on certain subjects such as pleasure in adulthood. This poetry collection was a treat. 4 stars.