And Yet audiobook

Life comes at you fast. There never seems to be enough time in the day for all the joys and sorrows it may bring, enough time for all the work, reading, laughter or quality time with loved one. ‘If only we could put the world on hold,’ Kate Baer muses in her third collection of poetry, And Yet, and demonstrates how, perhaps, we can very well do so through poetry. Poetry puts a moment on pause and allows you to open it up, unpack the viscera of emotions and examine the bones of living, and across this volume we watch Baer chronicle many moments worth pausing on. The poems here gaze inwards to capture Baer’s self-reflections, particularly on motherhood and marriage, as well as outward to discuss topics like misogyny and the COVID pandemic. It's a bit light and could certainly go deeper, but the quick flashes of recognizable emotions seem to be the aim and in that it succeeds. Through the highs and lows, Baer asks us ‘to witness one / life’s miserable devastation and / see her reach, instead, for joy,’ and delivers it all in succinct poetry full of humor and wit.IdeaI will enjoy this life. I will open itlike a peach in season, suck the juicefrom every finger, run my tongue overmy chin. I will not worry about clichésor uninvited guests peering in my windows.I will love and be loved. Save and be saveda thousand times. I will let the want intomy body, bless the heat under my skin.My life, I will not waste it. I will enjoy this life.This is a short collection and many of the poems are quite short, but they also pack a lot of emotion within them. Baer became an instant hit with her 2020 debut, What Kind of Woman, full of strong feminist themes and empowering reflections that were wonderfully succinct and quotable, making them ideal posts to be shared and reshared on social media as a very difficult year was coming to a close. Her honest examinations of womanhood and criticisms of misogyny in her book of poems as well as her online blog received a lot of pushback and toxic responses which, in the mindset of the maxim about when life hands you lemons, she creatively transformed into poetic lemonade through erasure poems or poetic retellings of these emails in her second collection I Hope This Finds You Well. Here we return to more to the style of her first collection, though poems such as Reasons to Log Off that discusses the cruelty of strangers on the internet keeps her second book always close to mind as well. The poems vary across settings and scenarios like putting kids to bed, hating a move to a new home, waiting in a COVID testing facility, or simply feeling the exhaustion of life. But not everything is harsh examinations or poems about grief. Baer has a fun sense of humor, such as poems like ‘Writing Poems High/On Twitter’, or exploring alternative words to make the slang acronym ”Milf” (ending on ‘Mother I’d like to free’) or even that her headstone should one day read ‘Honestly just a really good time.’ There is a wonderful balance of emotions that keep this collection feeling light and playful amidst all the grief.‘How foolish we are / to believe what we love won’t end.’Baer gives a lot of space for introspection here, or, as she puts it. to ‘walk down to the river of myself / and see what I have always known.’ These poems are often easy to identify with or laugh with, which makes them quite catching. ‘Where are the poems / about the grief of two ordinary people / who fell in love?’ she asks, opting to write them herself with poetry about ordinary and everyday life carrying both joy and grief. There are close-ups of marriage, not shirking away from flaws and failures while still capturing moments of coziness and peace, and plenty of thoughts on parenthood wondering what we can actually pass along to children when we, as adults, are caught in the mess of a society we often make messier. But most of all, Baer captures moments when the walls are down and the armor is off and we can’t do anything but face ourselves.‘You ask me my intentionsbut darling, I have none.I only have desire.’This is a quick and fun collection that will certainly please fans and likely attract newcomers as these poems seem destined for social media feeds much like the first collection. Baer naturally gets comparisons to Rupi Kaur, and does feel like a more matured and formal few steps further than the insta-poetry scene that was quite popular a few years ago while still having a similar shareability. They can seem a bit slight, but the accessibility is nice and welcoming, and anyone can find something to identify with in these pages. And Yet reminds us to pause on moments and drink deeply from them to get the most out of life.3.5/5If You Were to Ask for the Secret to a Happy Marriageafter Leah Naomi GreenI would tell you how the fire beetle matesonly when the chaparral is burning.How the prologue changes when youwrite the second act. How even whena room is backlit by the joy of children,by the brilliance of a fantasy,there will always be a deathdressed as a question, waiting alonein that godforsaken dark.

Loved this collection of contemporary poetry written by a wife, mom, and modern woman. The poems are genuine and approachable. I read a few each day so that I could sit with each one for a spell. Favorites were "Bliss" and "Reasons to Log Off."

4.5 starsback on the train of review catch up in the form of mini reviews, this time with kate baer’s latest collection of poems ‘and yet’.as a woman, i related to this collection ~deeply~. while most poems are short in length, they pack a punch, discussion themes such as motherhood and vulnerability and what it means to show up for yourself when you’re expected to do so much for those around you as a caretaker. it’s honest & emotional & i think you just gotta read this one for yourself!

I am so thankful to both Harper Perennial and Kate Baer for sending me this ARC version of And Yet which details a brutally and bitterly-put retelling of life and experiences of both the #MeToo Movement, corrupt government officials, and the Global Pandemic that struck so many with loss and fear. This beautiful collection is set to hit shelves on September 13, 2022 and I can't wait for more of my friends to pick it up, digest it, and feel every emotion that I encountered while ogling through its pages.

The accuracy of some of these… shit. That hit.

This book. Kate Baer’s first book of poems shook me. This one spoke straight to my soul. I received an advanced copy (thanks to Netgalley) and the timing of reading this couldn’t have been more perfect. A couple of my favorites are Halfway There, End of the World, and What Are We Doing Here?. Thanks for these words, Kate. They mean more than you could know.

This is Kate Baer’s best and most expansive work yet. She isn’t afraid to be frank about the messy and the beautiful, the mundane and the profound. Her unapologetic feminism coupled with her gentle candor on motherhood, love, and loss make for a read that will be resonating with me long after I turned the last page.

Another lovely collection from Kate Baer! As with any book of poetry, some works are stronger than others, but almost everything in here is solid, and when something hits, it REALLY hits. Whew!

I read poetry in Highschool and didn’t think it was for me…AND YET I absolutely devoured Kate Baer’s latest poetry collection. I planned to read a poem a day for Nonfiction November but I couldn’t help but binging these poems in one hour.Her musings on womanhood, being a mother, and wry social commentary were spot on. Kate narrated the audiobook and I loved having her speak words into my life that resonated so deeply.Her words found me as I was trying to make dinner while wearing a fussy baby during witching hour. It was in this very moment that I heard the words, “I wear him like a spare appendage” as Kate reflected on life with her newborn son. I felt so seen. She captures the beauty and exhaustion of this season so perfectly. These words are special, and poignant, and oh so timely. Even if poetry isn’t your thing, I’d encourage you to give AND YET a try.RATING: 5/5PUB DATE: November 8, 2022

I admit, when an author hits a bestseller list, I'm a little leery of whether or not I myself will love it. I'm not sure if that's the academic in me speaking, but there are some names who appear on those bestseller lists as good at "poetry," but you look at some of the stuff, and it's really just fortune cookie Instagram nonsense.To be clear: That Is Not What This Book Is. At All.This book is, in fact, so good, I went and ordered the New York Times bestselling book because I knew I would love it as much as this one. This book is so good that I ended up sending two of its poems to my not-poetry-reading husband (I mean, he'll read mine, and then he'll say, "That's nice" and look at me like, I love you and I don't know what else to say to you right now but good job getting it in a journal you claim is a good one but I have no barometer to agree with you on). Baer has somehow managed to write completely readable stuff that feels so completely true but also really hits you in the solar plexus as good stuff. Yes, that's exactly it, and thank you for writing that because I feel like you wrote it exactly for me, except I'm pretty sure a bajillion other people will get it too. We all have a solar plexus (I think).Thank you, Kate Baer, for whatever it is that allows you to see the things and then write about them in these just-right sized poems without a lot of pomp and circumstance but also with just the right amount of craft. And thank you, Kate Baer, for writing a book that somehow also doesn't have duds. So many really good poetry collections have a handful of stellar poems and some pretty good ones and a handful of duds, but these were all above the mark. I loved this book and when it comes out (on my birthday!), I will get myself a copy so it can live with me, but in the meantime, thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 ✨I enjoyed listening to this poetry collection so so much.

Now look. Kate Baer is the only poet I read, but damn I love this woman. Almost makes me want to be a poet. What a beautiful way to make sense of (or try to, at least) the world. I feel like a lot of these poems were more deep and required more from me to understand. Some I didn’t understand. But others I was screenshotting and bookmarking so I never ever lose them. And “The Garden of Eden: Updated Jacket Copy for the Modern World” is my favorite thing I’ve read in years. Why am I laughing so hard?We love a woman who can speak so eloquently about the complexity of god, motherhood, womanhood, the patriarchy, and humanity. MORE POEMS NOW!Thanks to net galley for the advanced copy. I’ll be purchasing my own when it comes out, to go with the other two (which are perfection).

Maybe 4.5. Thank you to libro.fm ALC influencer program.

Thank you to my friend Amanda for letting me borrow her ARC of Kate Baer's book. I loved What Kind Of Woman and while And Yet is different, it's a good kind of different. Definitely an evolution of a writer. I had no idea what to expect from page to page and I love being surprised. This is not "more of the same" ...instead it's "let's see what else we can do." 5/5

The perfect book with which to end 2022. Kate makes me love poetry, feel feelings…all things that don’t come naturally to me. I love her for it. This was excellent.

RTC*Thank you to HarperCollins Canada for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review*