Poetry Review: Today Means Amen – Poems by Sierra DeMulder

By Pamelascott
Today Means Amen: Poems by Sierra DeMulderPoet's Website Amazon (UK) Amazon.com I was given this ARC by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Dear you:
Whoever you are,
However you got here,
This is exactly where you are supposed to be.
This moment has waited its whole life for you.
Andrews McMeel Publishing (ebook), expected publication date 2 February 2016
112 Pages

These are the opening lines of "Today Means Amen," YouTube star Sierra DeMulder's immensely powerful and virally popular poem, which lends its title to this collection. Like her fellow Millennial poets Tyler Knot Gregson, Clementine von Radics, and Lang Leav, Sierra has the gift of speaking directly to the reader. "Today Means Amen" has become an anthem of sorts to thousands, who find themselves reflected in its pain, its fierceness, its tenderness - but also in its triumphant culminating refrain:

The poems in Sierra's new book explore the rocky terrains of love, family, and womanhood with this same remarkable honesty and generosity. Today Means Amen brings this important young poet's work to an even broader audience.

IN THE IN-BETWEEN

We finally decided to leave each other.

To throw in the towel as they say, which
Makes me think of love as some
Red-faced boxer - lips ballooning, eyes

Disappearing inside themselves...

Today Means Amen is a fantastic collection of poems. I'm not familiar with DeMulder's
work and after reading this collection (which blew my mind, by the way) I'm hungry for
more of her poems. I loved everything about this collection, every poem, every word, every
image and every detail. Today Means Amen contains the kind of contemporary poems I love and write myself. Page after page spoke to me. Some of the best poems are In The In-
Between, The Origin Of The Heart As An Indicator Of Love, Seven Layers Of Hell, God Bless
Your Fingers, The Origin Of Breast Milk, After Googling Information For Abuse Survivors,
It Rained For Two Days Straight, Thirteen Stanzas For Sarah Winchester Who I Think I
Understand and Facts Written From Airplane. poems in this collection are intimate and
personal, full of joy, sadness and life. I absolutely loved this collection.