Before she wrote prose, Michelle Tea was a poet. This expansive, fiery volume collects Tea's early chapbooks along with previously unpublished poems, making vivid Tea's own life, from the dysfunctional family household she left in New England through college and the Tucson sex trade, to the happier life she made for herself on the West Coast.
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(Manic D Press, 1 November 2003, paperback, 245 pages, bought from Borders Book Store which has since shut book)
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I've read The Beautiful a handful of times. I return to this collection of poems again and again. I discovered this collection not long after it was published browsing the poetry shelves of a bookstore. I took a peek at the first few poems and bought a copy. The poems in this collection are the type of poems I write myself and love to read; raw, personal, visceral. I'm not a fan of poems about big ideas and themes. I love poems about the poet's own life and experiences. They resonate with me the most. Some of these poems inspired by earlier poems as well. I still love The Beautiful and would recommend it.
