My Darling from the Lions is the intimate and striking debut poetry collection from Rachel Long, leader of the Octavia Poetry Collective for Womxn of Colour, who has been dubbed by Booker-prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo as ‘an enchanting and heartwarming new voice in poetry.’ The collection is refreshingly candid, touching on topics such as sexual politics, femininity, the quirks of family, youth, sexual awakening, and race and colourism. Long’s genuine and authentic poetic voice is starkly contemporary, conveying both wit and humour along with an urgent and remarkable depth of emotion.
My Darling from the Lions leaves a lasting impression on the reader; imbued with vivid imagery, each poem elicits a profound emotional response which speaks powerfully to our contemporary cultural moment. As a young woman navigating the idiosyncrasies of life in my early twenties, I found myself able to identify with many of the joys, frustrations, discoveries and challenges that Long’s poems explore. An excerpt from one of my favourite poems in the collection, ‘Sandwiches,’ provides a taste of Long’s unique and perceptive poetic voice:
‘Already, Tiff’s a reckoning;
bomb glitter on lids, oil spill on lips, sandwiches
padding her bra. Yeah, the sandwiches.
Thick, white, unbuttered. See, Tiff’s clocked
the boys have clocked the difference between
a tissue and a tit, a sock and a tit, but not quite yet
a tit and a slice of bread.’
My Darling from the Lions establishes Rachel Long as another powerful female figure in the line-up of today’s contemporary poetic voices, standing her alongside the likes of Jackie Kay, Amanda Gorman, Bhanu Kapil and Mary Jean Chan.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5 stars
Disgraceful Magazine 