This poetry collection reads like a story and a beautiful one at that. It is centred around the poet’s own experiences of growing up as a boy in rural Jamaica. The poems take imagery from nature and the culture around him as well as western ideas and mythology. These themes seem to be clashing with each other but at the same time blend together as Hutchinson starts to come more into his identity. I will say some of this went over my head. I’m not sure if that’s on me or if it’s the structure of the poems. Because these poems form an ongoing story, the individual poems felt a bit chaotic at times. It makes it so that there’s a bit too much going on in one poem and the essence sometimes gets a bit lost. However, I did still enjoy this! My favourite poems were:

- anthropology
- requiem for aunt may
- new world frescoes
- a small pantheon
- letter from home
- a surveyor’s journal
- circle march
- the mirror before sleep

"Far District" is precisely rich in symbolism, with the deliberate placement of metaphors and the careful vagueness weaving an anthropological exploration. It's the perfect option for those seeking a quick yet thought-provoking read. The poems within are sparse and discrete in their emotional landscape. The author's subtle use of religious metaphors adds another dimension to the reading experience. Among the collection, my personal favourites are "Requiem for Aunt May" and "The Mother Portrait."

4.25 stars rounded down.

I was very excited to be approved for this book by NetGalley, so thank you to them and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. This collection of poetry was initially released in 2010, I think, but is being re-released on November 12, 2024. Upon first publication, it won the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award.

Far District: Poems takes the reader on a journey of a man trying to figure out his place in the world. Born in Jamaica, Hutchinson's poems are dripping with beautiful imagery of the sea, the island he grew up on, and the culture he was raised in. There are poems that mix English with Jamaican Patois masterfully, which reflects the theme that run throughout the collection, which seems to be of a person who holds a skepticism about Western culture while also needing to question his own. I loved when poems took imagery from Greek mythology and put that imagery beside Jamaican myths and stories, or moments from the author's life. I thought it was so clever and so impactful.

Did I understand everything I read? No. I come from a very different background than Hutchinson. But I can easily see myself re-reading these poems and getting something different out of them every time. Thoroughly enjoyed, and so glad I was able to read this ARC for National Poetry Month.

Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC!

I have been getting more into poetry recently, and this poetry collection is a work of art. I haven't read a poetry collection quite like this one before, and I really enjoyed this collection. There were some poems I had to read a couple times since I am not completely used to the format that was used for this. Overall, a collection worth picking up!

"Far District" is an amazing poetry-collection of the author's boyhood in Jamaica.

For someone who doesn't read much poetry, it was a challenge, at first, to understand the long, complex poems that Ishion Hutchinson showed. I was, somehow, used to simple poetry, or poetry in my native tongue, so I had a diccionary at hand.

But, once I managed to get past that, I truly enjoyed it. The pace was just perfect, the structure of the poems were incredible to see, and the topics of both cultures were added without being too vague or too in the nose. I found the collection pretty enjoyable.

"Lips remember no songs,
hands no rituals, all I have
are headache dreams.
The sea swells into a hurricane,
the land blackens into cancer,
lightning opens a heart
in the sky, like a boy opening
the window of a hot room
his mother died in."

many thanks to FSG books for so graciously giving me a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

reading far district is like viewing a piece of contemporary art. you know it's beautiful. you know that it pulls at you. you just might not necessarily understand why until you've given yourself time to think about it, to process your feelings, to revisit it. even when i didn't understand something on my first pass, there would inevitably be lines that just resonated within me. will all readers find this book approachable? no, not at all. but this is a collection of poems that more than deserves the attention and work that it requires.

hutchinson and i are from incredibly different backgrounds — many his poems are steeped in this burning specificity that would be confusing ro me if not for the gripping and relentless imagery he provides alongside it. these poems build off one another, creating a connective tissue that fuses together culture, religion, philosophy, memory, learning, and longing. even despite so much turmoil, there's still so many instances of light to be found throughout. i learned so much, and i know i will remember so many aspects of this book due to the enduring beauty of hutchinson's writing.

Ishion Hutchinson’s Far District poetry collection read like that of an art gallery. Snapshots of this young boy growing up in Jamaica. What that means and looks like. Written with beautiful pros. My only issue is most of the time the paintings weren't strong enough to convey my emotions. As much as I loved reading from Hutchinson and learning everything I can something felt off.

As the collection feels heavy and most of the poems hard to grasp at times, I found myself rereading them as I went along. Leaving for a very unsatisfying journey. Some in the middle even that didn't allow me to full enjoy the work. Which I blame on myself not Hutchinson ways to phrase a sentence.

Then you have the standout poems and those hit me like the best painting I just wish they were all like that.

Overall, I'm landing on a 3.25⭐'s.

(Gifted an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)

Myth, madness, and the swallowing past all shape Far District: Poems, Ishion Hutchinson's debut poetry collection. In a rough narrative, we follow a speaker (The Prodigal in "New World Frescoes", I and You in many others), journeying from a childhood past in Jamaica to a present across the sea.

Hutchinson's voice, at its best, pulses with a mixture of the divine and disgust, often in awe at the natural and literary and struggling with the humans, though there too creeps in love. Lines like "tuned to the blue/ above and below" and "I know rivers the way I know hate" evoke such clear reactions, ironically often of very messy feelings. "A Small Pantheon" and "Doris at the River" were favorites for me from the collection.

Occasionally a line feels too blunt and some poems commit so much to the narrative that the more abstract poems feel more out of place as a result. But I can already see how a reread, armed with Hutchinson's notes at the end, could be particularly rewarding.

Thanks to NetGalley and FSG for the ARC!

Ishion Hutchinson’s "Far District" is best approached as a gallery rather than a series of discrete poems. For me, at least, very few of these pieces stood out on their own, but as a whole, they form an archive-like retelling of the speaker’s childhood in Jamaica.

These are muggy, sweaty poems enveloped in a shadowed spirituality. They are swirling and mystical, but they are regularly interrupted by intense physical description. The overall effect reads like a memory heightened by fever.

While I don’t think any single poem stands above the rest, Hutchinson has a remarkable ability to defamiliarize language and images, and as much of the book deals with European influence on the West Indies, it is an effective way to highlight just how “other” colonial influence has been. Here, it reads not only as foreign, but sinister on a spiritual level, with Christendom looming over almost every poem. Similarly, the numerous modern interruptions to a traditional, almost primeval, life feel profane within the context of the narrative.

"Far District" is not the most approachable book—it rewards re-reading far more than an initial read, and it almost requires readers to look beyond the text to make sense of it. It’s remarkably intertextual, and there’s a rare historical weight behind each poem. This book feels like one to spend weeks to months with, and I’m looking forward to doing so in the future.