Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul by Ryka Aoki

Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul Reviews

• 
  Alexis Hall

  Source of book: KU
  Relevant disclaimers: None
  Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.
  
  And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.
  
  Further disclaimer: Readers, please stop accusing me of trying to take down “my competition” because I wrote a review you didn’t like. This is complete nonsense. Firstly, writing isn’t a competitive sport. Secondly, I only publish reviews of books in the subgenre where I’m best known (queer romcom) if I have good things to say. And finally: taking time out of my life to read an entire book and then write a GR review about it would be a profoundly inefficient and ineffective way to damage the careers of other authors. If you can’t credit me with simply being a person who loves books and likes talking about them, at least credit me with enough common sense to be a better villain.
  
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  I wish I understood, like, anything about KU? Like why does it only show me porn when there are things like Aoki's first book of poetry available?
  
  Anyhow, this volume brings together Sometimes Too Hot The Eye Of Heaven Shines and No More Hiroshimas (which those familiar with Aoki’s work may recognise from elsewhere) with three new pieces, The Woman of Water Dreams, A Song of Someplace Yet to Fall, and After a Lifetime of Saving the World. For the record, I love Sometimes Too Hot The Eye Of Heaven Shines and No More Hiroshimas (which I’ve read before) but they did feel slightly out of place to me in this volume? Or perhaps they should have been at the beginning, rather than the end? I don’t know. I’m probably just being weird, but The Woman of Water Dreams, A Song of Someplace Yet to Fall, and After a Lifetime of Saving the World make such a perfect trio—and are clearly designed to be read as such—that I want them to have more space to breathe, instead of the reader then be sort of hustled along to the next thing.
  
  This is picky bullshit about layouts though. I adore Aoki’s writing—painful though it can be—and these poems were no exception. As has been established over multiple previous attempts to discuss poetry, I am going to be a poor reviewer for this book. Basically, I feel like poetry the way I feel about music: I feel an intense longing for it and connection to it, but have zero capability to articulate anything about it. I should probably also mention to begin with that the collection covers some potentially quite triggering material (transphobia, queerphobia, violence abuse, death, grief) so do, as ever, take care of yourself first and foremost.
  
  Ultimately the three new poem sequences in Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul are united through themes of loss; the ways queer people, and trans people in particular, must forge identity from and around and through loss. Loss of self, loss of family, loss of history, loss of future. “The Woman of Water Dreams” weaves itself around the Transgender Day of Remembrance, situating experiences of personal loss (Steam rises from the stockpot / like the stories of spices, songs / and all the home this girl will never know) alongside the relentless cultural expectation of loss that surrounds trans people in general (With another November / the names of trans people / change color and fall).
  
  “A Song of Someplace Yet to Fall” circles loss again, this time of cis friends and family members, unable to accept the poet’s transness. Like “The Woman of Water Dreams” the tone is bitter, melancholy, and bitterly resolute: carving spaces for selfhood amidst rejection, isolation and rejection.
  
  

  But I am not cruelty-free. I do not offer a gluten-free option.
  
  I won’t talk like a pirate. I won’t pump up the volume, get wasted, have sex with you at Burning Man. I won’t dig your hip-hop, save the planet at this badass rally, talk Chinese, support your Greenpeace, stop eating sushi forsake animal proteins watch Glee ride a fixiedonatetoIndiegogoleggoyourEggo.

  
  
  And then there’s “After A Lifetime of Saving the World”. While not devoid of pain nor completely free of the losses that haunt the previous two poems, it’s honestly just … gorgeous. An offering of solace—the blissful banality of domesticity—amidst and because of the pain, not because of it.
  
  

  And with you I light a candle.
  And with you I reheat the noodles.
  Or so we hope
  we hope
  when we are weak
  we can say we know
  what it feels like
  to truly love.

  
  
  Which, unfortunately, brings us back to my inarticulate poetry flailings. I can’t remember if this is, like, a famous thing a famous person said or a thing a friend of mine said that I liked and am now stealing, but the friend who I think said it (or the friend who told me that it was a famous thing a famous person said once) described poetry once as an inherently sculptural artform. A novel, she said, is like a painting: you, as the writer, present a single perspective, albeit one that can be interpreted multiple ways by different viewers. I mean you can’t choose to read a novel from the POV of a different character, just like if you peer behind a painting, all you’ll see is canvas.
  
  A poem, though, a poem you can walk round. And I guess where I’m going with this is, I feel that these are poems I can walk round. The language is, at once, so matter-of-fact and so intricate, presenting terrible and beautiful and heart-breaking and hopeful things with astonishing depth and clarity.
  
  I mean, even the fucking foreword is ridiculously moving:
  
  

  I realized that my favorite poems did not run away from their pasts—they transformed them. After trying to write poetry from a perspective and privilege I never had, I finally stopped trying to be somewhere and someone else […] And gradually a type of poetry finally began to come from a hand, heart, and voice I could truly call my own.”

  
  
• 
  Christina

  I’m not one to read (or understand) poetry, and I still don’t entirely understand everything that was written on these pages, but these words made me feel. So much. This thin little book of poetry carries so much weight, and the verses are piercing in that they went straight to the very emotional core of me whatever they carried reverberated throughout. It is raw and honest and leaves nothing and holds nothing back. And in turn it made me feel everything.
• 
  Janani

  I'm not much of a poetry reader, and I'm trying to work on that, especially breaking from reading anything that would fall under the traditional poetry mould. This collection is beautiful and heartbreaking, a poignant collection featuring themes of loss, lamentation, remembrance, and survival. Each section flows into the next. Many different kinds of loss actually- the loss of trans lives, being abandoned by family and friends who can't deal with the poet's identity, and such, capturing the intra-community grief vividly. The forward was very touching as well. Definitely a collection to pick up.
• 
  Corinne

  Honestly I do not know how to rate a book of poems but I can say that I found many of the poems in this book beautiful, compelling and moving and I'm very glad I read it.
• 
  HannahBanaza

  I went back and fourth about whether this book should get 3 or 4 starts. I loved the Asian heritage that shined through the writers prospective in some of the poems. There was one poem that I absolutely adored and will most likely be written on the inside of a Valentines Day card. There were others, that I could feel the pain and suffering. You can feel her challenges within her writing as a transgender author. It was extremely touching.
• 
  Jeimy

  When I was thinking about how to review this book one phrase kept coming up in my mind. It is from
  John Green's book
  The Fault in Our Stars, "That's the thing about pain. It demands to be felt."
  
  Ryka Aoki has wrapped pain up in lyrical word play and gifted it to the rest of us. I an in awe of the poet's use of words and I hope that sharing the pain with the rest of us brought some respite.
• 
  Lewis

  Content warnings - transphobia, homophobia, abuse (sexual & physical), reference to AIDs, grief
  
  This was such a profound and hard-hitting collection of poems. I'd advise caution based on the above CWs but I also highly recommend reading if you can.
• 
  Avril Lyons

  I grabbed this because I loved Light From Uncommon Stars and was not disappointed. Aoki has such an incredible skill with words. The imagery in this was compelling and both beautiful and haunting. Would absolutely recommend picking up.
• 
  Ava

  Really, really well-written poetry. Sometimes it veers a bit too close to being a jumble of juxtaposed pretty words that have no overall meaning, but for the most part this is an excellent collection.
• 
  Simon

  I needed this, Her voice - in grief, in protest, in love. The structure and how the different verses fit into it. The love of an (ugly) city, the impulse towards survival, determination, grit.
• 
  Kalisto Nanen

  Ryka Aoki's "Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul" is a powerful and moving collection of poems that explores themes of identity, love, loss, and resilience. Through her vivid imagery and lyrical language, Aoki paints a portrait of the human experience that is at once deeply personal and universally resonant. Whether she is reflecting on her own journey as a transgender woman, celebrating the beauty of nature, or grappling with the complexities of human relationships, Aoki's words have a raw and honest quality that speaks to the heart of what it means to be alive. This beautifully written collection showcases the author's talent for capturing the essence of the human experience. Aoki's language is rich and evocative, and her imagery is both vivid and striking. I appreciated the way that she weaves together themes of identity, love, and resilience in a way that feels authentic and heartfelt. I found this book to be a deeply moving and thought provoking read.
• 
  Racheal

  Maybe this is a bad reason to stop (and I'm not usually a jerk about grammar) but I found 3-4 instances of missed/excess words in the intro and it was enough to take me out of the reading of it. When I skipped to a poem and found a missing word again I gave up.
• 
  Bec

  Pretty accessible in terms of other poetry compilations I read. Organized in a logical way. Themes that drew me include remembrance, connections to the universe, family, and thoughtful discussions of the importance/ significance of food.
• 
  Drianne

  Nice poetry volume.
• 
  John

  poetry with such clarity of being self--
• 
  Brian

  There were certain bits I didn't love, but other sections were stunning. The poems weave in and out of clarity, which is difficult at times, but compelling.