Build Yourself a Boat

by Camonghne Felix

“Camonghne Felix is a brilliant writer, thinker, imaginer, builder—a young leader who shifts and opens the possibilities for a more just, better lit world, with each step, each word, each question.” —Kathy Engel

This is about what grows through the wreckage. This is an anthem of survival and a look at what might come after. A view of what floats and what, ultimately, sustains.

Build Yourself a Boat redefines the language of collective and individual trauma through lyric and memory.

Camonghne Felix is a poet, political strategist, media junkie, and cultural worker. She received an MA in arts politics from NYU, an MFA from Bard College, and has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo, and Poets House. A Pushcart Prize nominee, she is the author of the chapbook Yolk and was listed by Black Youth Project as a “Black Girl from the Future You Should Know.”

• ISBN10: 1608466116
• ISBN13: 9781608466115
• Publish Date: 23 April 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Haymarket Books
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 72
• Language: English

Reviews

[laughingrachel]

I liked the experiments with form. The changes that it makes to the flow of the way you read it make a lot of sense. It supports the text, there's a reason for the words to be placed the way they are. I liked how the footnotes came together with everything at the end.

The content of the collection, I'm going to have to sit with some more before I feel comfortable speaking about it. One of the things that makes poetry so difficult to review for me, is the deeply personal nature of it. Not just the poetry itself - it was made to be published, but the feelings and emotions it evokes in the reader. I never feel eloquent enough to get my thoughts across. Which is probably why I like reading other people's words so much.

As it always boils down to for me with poetry, I like it a lot because it made me feel things very deeply.

Highly recommend this collection for anyone. It could speak to a shared experience, it could teach you something new, or a little bit of both.