The Collection Plate audiobook

The collection plate was a book of poetry that rocked me to my 🦴 bones. It is very rare that I read something that has a voice like this one. There wasn’t any great romance that broken her heart. There wasn’t some man/woman that left her. She was fully aware and conscious in this one🙌🏽.I have never read a book of poetry that reminded me of a younger Toni Morrison until this. When I read this I couldn’t stop 🛑 thinking about "The Bluest Eye". This had old south written all over it. A little danger and fire. This was nitty and gritty but honest. There were parts of this book that took my breath away. However, there were just as many that had me begging for more. This is riddled in culture and the harshness that is the BLACK experience. Especially this quote from Nannie Helen Burroughs. "white men offer more protection for their prostitutes than black men offer to their best women”I took away a star ⭐️ because I wanted to see a note from the author at the end to give us a little backstory on the timeline and what made her write this book of poetry. I feel that because poetry has such a personal voice. It is harder sometimes to assume what something is in relation to so it’s great to see where the author wanted you to go with their writing. That is my only honest complaint here and it was still a joy to read. I think when this comes out in audio it will be just as lovely.I received an ARC from NetGalley, and I am leaving an honest review.

I won this through a giveaway in exchange for an honest review...I don’t have much to say on this, except that is was pretty good. Poetry is personal, and everybody liked different things...it speaks to people in different ways. It wasn’t the best that I’ve read, but it definitely wasn’t the worst, either. All in all, I’d say it was pretty decent.

Poems filled with passion, agony, and anguish reveal the emotions of black lives. This writer's bold and demanding tone emerges powerfully with infinitive phrases and genuine craft. My favorite poems are ‘Solace by Earl’, ‘I am the note Held Towards the End’, ‘Gifting back Barn and Bread’, and ‘I come to You as Humbly as I Know’. Black Lives Matter, the message not the movement are words I as a black woman announce say proudly!

This poetry collection grabbed me swiftly by the throat from the first page and choked me up all the way through. Read some things I wish I couldn't relate to and others I was sad the author had the language to bear witness. Thoughts of scarlet red-lined church pews and my grandma's hands came to mind as the author's poems ushered me down memory lane, reminiscing. Reading The Collection Plate was a full-bodied, complex, and oftentimes heart-wrenching experience. And even with all that this book was, I still found myself needing more at the end. Those who crave beautiful, yet haunting words of the poetic persuasion will want to add this one to your collection once it publishes on July 6, 2021! ⭐⭐⭐⭐Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @eccobooks for the gifted ARC! 📚❤

The Collection Plate knocked the wind out of me at times. The themes explored through these poems were especially meaningful to me. Intially, I thought this would be a collection of poems about religion. While religion or religious jargon is weaved thoughout, Kendra Allen explores so much more. She explore family, love, grief, and community. I can't even begin to explain how water showed up over and over again, holding beautiful metaphors. There were some poems were I wanted more. They did not feel complete. I was left on edge and not in a good way. However, I was more more wowed than no.

***Note: I received a free digital review copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.***I try my best to keep up with fresh new voices in the world of poetry. I like work that sidles up next to you and punches you in the face when you’re least expecting it, and Kendra Allen does exactly that. The Collection Plate covers so much ground in so limited a frame, one could almost call Allen a magician. Herein lies poems (songs? psalms?) exploring Black girlhood/womanhood, religion (its redemption(s) as well as its confines and strictures), sexual politics, family history, the tyranny of memory, and the line(age)s we cross when we decide who we’re going to be. “the pastor is our uncle and our uncle di- / vests me of my volition / back on land / I drip / I dribble, I cough up / who I shoulda been” —from “Evening service” How does one even begin to analyze works this explosive? Poets don’t often compare religious ceremonies, in this case baptism, to a divestiture of one’s own free will, but Allen does so with aplomb and an assuredness that rings true for anyone familiar with charismatic faith traditions.I don’t want to distract from the beauty of this collection with an overabundance of my own commentary, so I’ll just leave it with you like this: I’ve already bought my own copy so I can read it again and again. And again.The Collection Plate: Poems is now available to order wherever books are sold. You can follow Kendra Allen on Twitter @kendracanyou. This review can also be found on my blog, The Voracious Bibliophile, at http://thevoraciousbibliophile.art.blog.

Kendra Allen’s debut, The Collection Plate hits the poetry scene with a forceful slam. Weaving together personal experience and cultural exploration she examines themes that emote expressions of angst, loss, sorrow, and grief in a calculated and meaningful way. Each poem has its own unique bop in a sense and rhythm that when read aloud is absolutely phenomenal!”Ain’t no rallies—ain’t no protests—ain’t no local night news bout a ghetto girl head wound with three babies at home and a daddy on his second strike”There are poems that explore freedom, imprisonment, sexuality, and simply what it means to black in the context of today’s society. A few of my favorites included: #FreeMyNiggas but Free My Niggas, I Come To You As Humbly As I Know How, Naked & Afraid, Afraid & Naked, Happy 100th Birthday, and I’m Tired of Yo Ass Always Crying.”Thank you to NetGalley and Ecco for gifting me this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Publication Date: July 6, 2021

i really enjoyed this poetry collection! allen's wordplay and use of line breaks are so refreshing and compelling. i loved the references to many modern pieces of media in evoking her personal experiences of womanhood and Blackness in America. never did i think i would read a poem written after Tiffany Pollard. truly magnificent. kendra allen has this special way of painting brutality without being exploitative and expressing joy without being naive. it's hard to explain but it's so well done and i would definitely be on the lookout for more of her work!my favorite poems would have to be "Evening Service", "Naked and Afraid" and "Afraid and Naked", "The Super Sadness! Feels Like Anger Which Feels Like", "I'm Tired of Yo Ass Always Crying", and "Gifting Back Bread & Barren Land", but there wasn't a poem that i didn't like!

In 2018, award-winning essayist Kendra Allen picked up the Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction for her debut essay collection "When You Learn the Alphabet," a timely collection that unquestionably announced Allen as a bold new voice demanding to be heard. With a two-book deal now in hand with Ecco, a HarperCollins imprint, Allen prepares for the debut of her first poetry collection in July 2021 called "The Collection Plate: Poems." It is soon to be followed by a memoir. "The Collection Plate: Poems" swings and swivels with the rhythms of the Black experience in America, an experience I certainly don't know as a disabled white man but an experience that has been captured by others from Baldwin to Kendi to Brown and others. It still seems like a rarity when we find a collection that surveys the Black experience actually through the Black lens. It's refreshing, yet it's also uncomfortable. You can practically feel Kendra Allen's presence while reading the words contained within "The Collection Plate," whether reading the extended stanzas of the emotionally resonant "Happy 100th Birthday" or becoming immersed in "The Maybe Memory" or the stunning "If You Throw Me in This Water What You're Telling Me is You Want Me Dead." Blackness, sex, and girlhood come vividly to life in these pages that feel as if they should be spoken because you cannot help but feel their rhythms and their demanding of recognition. The Dallas-born Allen finds the light within beauty and brutality, decayed relationships and fragile intimacies. I found myself reading a poem, then reading it again. I often found myself reading "The Collection Plate" aloud and wondering about the person behind these words. There are short poems here, poems like "Our Father's House (IV)," that feel like whispers of life and culture and experience. I occasionally laughed, "I Ain't Never Baked a Thing From Scratch a Day in My Life" comes to mind, while I also shuddered from something close to recognition with "The Super Sadness! Feels Like Anger Which Feels Like." "Afraid & Naked" left me deep in thought. Deep in emotion. "Collection Plates," the same. It takes a mastery of life and love and the written word to capture one's life experiences and one's culture in poetry, but this is precisely what Kendra Allen has done. She has done so masterfully. "The Collection Plate: Poems" is a collection that captivated me and captivates me still as her words became images and these images have seared themselves into my brain and into my heart and into my mind. A fresh new voice seems so incredibly cliche', yet as a young woman in her mid-twenties this is the only phrase I can think of to describe this newcomer whose voice feels older and wiser and like a voice I want to hear from again and again and again.

As a first read of contemporary poetry, I found this collection quite interesting. Kendra used an intriguing style of writing and structure throughout. It's hard to critique poetry, because interpretation of poetry is unique to each person.The Collection Plate was indeed a collection plate of things: god, confessions, observations, experiences. There was a lot of water imagery, knitting the poetry tighter together.I really enjoyed the sister poems and evening service.There were times I was unsure if the structure of every poem was correct as I was reading an uncorrected proof. Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. I am grateful to have been able experience this collection of poetry.

There seems to be a connection between poetry and pain. Kendra Allen’s “The Collection Plate” is no exception.Poems carved with passion, agony and anguish reveal the experiences and emotions of black lives. Her bold and demanding tone emerges powerful with apt phrases and genuine craft. Poetic expressions like ‘A family name can mean something; that way we can share the same death bed, that way I work for cheap….. and request to forget mornings…’, ‘digging her dynasty out of me so she can save it….’, Yet I still don’t know the difference between pleasure and penetration’ certainly leave a solid impact on the reader.My favorite poems are ‘Solace by Earl’, ‘I am the note Held Towards the End’, ‘Gifting back Barn and Bread’ and ‘I come to You as Humbly as I Know’.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ecco for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.This is an intimate poetry collection that is so lyrically beautiful and profound. I feel that if I read this in paperback format, it would be even more engaging than on my Kindle. There is a note in the beginning of the book pretty much stating this because digital formatting for a book like this can be difficult with the different types of reading devices and stuff--totally understandable. So yes, there were moments of weird formatting but it wasn't that difficult to look over due to the fact it was written so well.I am not an expert of poetry or anything but I thought this was a really good collection and unique. I liked the authors style and cadence through all the poems.4/5

Thank you to Ecco and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader's Copy!Now available!Eloquent and elusive, The Collection Plate maps religion, Black girlhood, and family in an urgent manner. Flowing through the collection is a theme of water, muddled, clear and haunting. Blood waters that tie together famil

Poetry is tough to review because it’s so personal and means something different to everyone. I really liked this collection together - it told me a lot about the author and had some incredibly clever formatting and positioning. I love when authors use the space on the page to get creative with their poems.I think the two poems that moved me the most were Naked & Afraid and Afraid & Naked. These poems together offer offer a crushing commentary on clean water access.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced readers e-copy of this book. This collection is full of clever, honest poetry and takes a reader through a full range of emotions without saying much at all. The series of themes that spans the collection is abuse, sexism, sex and love, home and death and content warnings apply. The words themselves aren't graphic at all but they're vivid. I'd personally love to see them being performed some day.

I found the bursts of poetic imagery to be quite beautiful but the abstractness of the poems outweigh their tangibility and I often found there wasn't enough for me to sink my teeth in. I felt a disconnect that I couldn't get over which was frustrating because I wanted to be fully submersed in this world the poet created.