Review: "I Have Wrestled with the Way Clouds Weep" by Judy Nahun

I Have Wrestled with the Way Clouds Weep by Judy Nahum
Published December 2024 via Querencia Press
★★★

you are what I feel / when my mouth puckers with tartness, / when the sentence comes out flawless, / when I see the word celestial. (loc. 72)

Chapbooks are such an odd beast of a thing: short and sweet, so much packed into so few pages. I'm not a poetry connoisseur (I know what I like but can't always articulate why, and poetry analysis is not my forte), and in spite or perhaps because of that I find chapbooks useful—enough to get a taste of the poet's writing but not so much that if it's not your cup of tea it drags.

I picked this one up largely for the title, taken from one of Nahum's poems:

From above, and in my throat, sparrows. From above, I have wrestled with the way clouds weep. In dreams I take flight, soaring over city blocks, patchworked rowhouses fathoms below. (loc. 91)

The poems are a little over my head at times (again, I don't speak fluent poetry), but the imagery is lovely. It's probably a step too much wrestling for me, but that's okay—I'd rather a poem be a step too complex for my understanding than a step too simple to challenge. Would recommend this for those with a strong grasp of metaphor and impressionism.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.