Press – Reviews
f/The Spring 2020 Walt Whitman Quarterly Review (Vol. 37/Nos. 3/4)—Review of Walt Whitman: The Measure of His Song—200th Birthday Edition—includes notes on Ferrell’s published poem “Sushi in Brooklyn: A Dedication to Walt Whitman”—
“[F]or Ferrell, Walt Whitman is ‘not a dead man/ is not an esteemed poet’ because ‘he is a housing development on carlton avenue/ across the street from the park / once a fort he helped to name.’ And ‘whitman is a rusted otis elevator stuck between floors….[he is] myrtle avenue at night’ (469). For Ferrell, Walt Whitman is an empty signifier, a meaningless abstraction. It’s the place in Brooklyn that’s real, real because of the people who live in the Walt Whitman Houses, a dilapidated public housing complex, real because of the ‘foggy ancient black man muttering to passers/ they are coming white people are coming’ (469). Real, too, because the neighborhood is gentrifying and Ferrell feels guilty about dining with friends who remark, ‘if our parents didn’t own these houses we’d never be able to live here’ (469). “Sushi in Brooklyn: A Dedication to Walt Whitman” is an off-rhyme tribute to Whitman’s democratic dream of equality in which everyone gets a seat at the table and enough to eat too.”
—Vivian Pollak, Washington University
author of Dickinson: The Anxiety of Gender
and The Erotic Whitman
(Click here for complete review): https://ir.uiowa.edu/wwqr/
Review of Ferrell’s winning poem “minuendus”—Winning Writers Tom Howard Poetry Award”—
“‘[A]nd so it is,’ this poem begins, meaning Amen or It is done. Yet the good man diminished by tragedy in minuendus dupes himself into believing otherwise; into pride, patronizing arrogance and uninvited penance. Ultimately, what we take away is his hard-earned lesson.”
—Soma Mei Sheng Frazier
2019, Winning Writers Judge
Pushcart Nominee, 2017 San Francisco Library Laureate
(Click here for complete review): https://winningwriters.com/our-contests/contest-archives/tom-howard-margaret-reid-poetry-contest-2019
“Monique Ferrell builds a sweeping constellation in ATTRAVERSIAMO with long lines that are filled with the tough, the tender, the held breath, hiccup sob, and exhalation. She takes on/takes in everything that plagues and everything that persists and everything that falls and rises. Each line weaves time and space as it rushes forward and crosses over barriers, and assumptions, and certainties.”
—Janice Worthen
SPD Books
"The title of this book by Monique Ferrell, ATTRAVERSIAMO, is difficult to pronounce, yet I remain enthralled with the contents…the power of her voice…and return again and again, her words full of moxie, at the same time endearing, an arm-around-the-shoulder wisdom insisting love is the “magnitude of our undertaking…the knowing breath of life touching gently…a great echo that forms this life, calls to the next, and carries everything in between.” Can’t get much better than that!"
—Julie Suk
Julie Suk Prize For Poetry sponsored by Jacar Press
Award-winning American poet and author of Astonished to Wake, Lie Down With Me: New and Selected Poems, The Dark Takes Aim, The Angel of Obsession: Poems, Heartwood: Poems, The Medicine Woman.
“For all its occasional harshness, this is the poetry we need to hear, need to read. Monique Ferrell writes with honesty and power. Strong words, strong images. The poetry can rouse one out of complacency, if complacency has become a home. Along with anger, there is grace…It’s what Monique Ferrell does so well in Black Body Parts—with courage, compassion, and skill, she’s painting her feelings for everyone to see.”
Linda Aschbrenner
Editor, Free Verse
“[A] Unique, skilled voice.”
—Richard Krawiec
Founder, Jacar Press
Author of Time Sharing, Faith In What?, Breakdown, and She Hands Me The Razor
“Monique Ferrell’s book Unsteady is a powerful, passionate, blues song that teaches us about grief and loss and survival. It is full of muscular, energetic language and poems, and above all, it is unforgettable. Ferrell is a poet to be read over and over. She pulls us into her world and makes us see it through her amazing eyes.”
—Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Winner, Barnes and Noble Writers Award, 2011
Winner, American Book Award, 2008
Editor, Patterson Literary Review
“Monique Ferrell’s poems are porcelain figurines, finely wrought, chipped in places, smiling wryly, and brought to life as Billy Holiday, Dorothy Dandridge, Mike Tyson, your mother, your sister, your brother, your child, your half-scrutable closest friend. Her poet’s voice penetrates the silence of their heartache and regret with a feeling for lost feeling and a steely staccato songbook all her own. Ferrell’s art simply matters.”
—George Guida
Author of Low Italian and New York and Other Lovers
“And it is stark,” Monique Ferrell tells us in the first poem of her new collection. She’s right, of course. Everything is stark: desires, relationships, disappointments, even triumphs. We don’t have the luxury of buffers; we always find ourselves negotiating sharp edges. There are no pretty pastel colors to ease us into a false sense of security; Monique describes an implacable world that’s black, white, and gray. Her long lines have the urgency of breaking-news announcements, and throughout the collection she counsels the readers: “keep your dignity,” she urges in one poem and reassures us in another that we aren’t struggling in solitude (“it is hardgoing for us all”). This book is about how we respond to choices. We either can embrace its wise poems or ignore them. I choose the former.”
—Joel Allegretti
Editor, Rabbit Ears: TV Poems
"attraversiamo is a phenomenal book of poetry by one of the 21st century’s most talented black female writers. Monique Ferrell’s lyrical collection lingers in the ear with potent insightfulness and vulnerability. She magnificently beckons all generations to be still and read."
—Marta Effinger-Crichlow
Author, Staging Migrations Toward an American West: From Ida B. Wells to Rhodessa Jones
Producer/Director of the documentary film, Little Sallie Walker