Bad Weather Mammals: Poems by Ashley-Elizabeth Best

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

A deeply impactful, brutally honest poetry collection about the joys and trauma of living with a disability.

I highlighted SO much of this book. The prose are stunning, the imagery is compelling, the way Elizabeth-Best plays with form elevates her words beyond the page.

For me, reading poetry is a deeply intimate act that connects the reader to the author in really vulnerable ways. In Ashley-Elizabeth's case, she takes her specific lived experiences and then cracks it open to create a connection to others in this really compelling way.

I love the strong imagery,
'A congregation of whispers
An army of murmurations
A flock of routes
An unkindness of biochemicals'

I love how this collection plays with the freedom of form, in connection to applying for disability support from the government. She makes government forms into poetry that are even more impactful on this backdrop of clinical/unfeeling/faceless forms.

I highly recommend buying a physical copy of this book if you can, because the way the poems are structured make the physical reading of this book a poem in itself.

Thank you to ECW Press for a physical copy of this ARC.

This book is best read while trying to run up an ice-slicked hill, with bubble wrap around your heart.