SET THE BONE

Waiting for the release of female rage the musical? (IYKYK) Jillian Stacia’s collection will sustain you until that album comes out. She wraps your heart in twine and drags you along for the experience of womanhood, motherhood, and love for family. The themes of inherited grief and anxiety that bleed and bloom on bones from generation to generation are braided through poems of resilience and strength. Stacia’s words are utterly divine and to be savored - there is no rushing through this collection. Her poetry needs to soak into your skin and marinate in your bones. In Lanterns, Stacia describes a a character’s “arch of her brow was enough to dry up your wounds, slice the syllables clean to the bone.” In A World full of Olives, Stacia brilliantly weaves peaceful olives into an explosive truth. Her wording beautifully encapsulates the parts of being a woman or mother that are often swept under the rug or closeted away. If you don't close this book feeling utter empathy and admiration for women and mothers, you need to read the book again. Stacia dedicates the book to the women who came before her and the women will come after. He poerty is demands more than “tidy pleasures' and her devotion to speaking the truth of women is memorialized in her words "even my bones beg for freedom', “We dance on shattered heirlooms”, “Let the past dry into dust". Please read this book. You will have zero regrets.