Crossfire: A Litany for Survival by Staceyann Chin

Crossfire: A Litany for Survival Reviews

• 
  Tea And Chill

  Really bad ass poems calling out so many issues from homophobia, sexism, racism, xenophobia, rape culture, and imperialism. Also contains emotional and personal poems about Staceyann Chin's personal experience such as heartbreak, her family relations and lust. I really love her style it's blunt, filled with emotion, understandable and powerful af.
• 
  Kiki

  When you're already reaching for your lighter at the author's preface you know you're reading towards power. There's a lot to say on how Chin folds, stretches, tears, and butts words together to hold space for herself and so many of us. For now, I can only suggest you carry everything you love and fear about yourself into this book. Chin is good for it.
  
  4.5 ⭐
• 
  Kimberly

  Powerful, raw, and vulnerable -a necessary narrative from a queer woman of color.
• 
  Sergio

  Slowly but surely I'm forcing myself to read more poetry and this latest collection might be my favorite yet. I really appreciate the way each poem connects to the next chronologically giving the collection a very autobiographical feeling, which does a great job of anchoring me through the poems. The poems are raw, emotional, poignant, hard hitting and of course, beautifully written, and I caught myself more than once rereading specific passages just to feel the way the words rolled into each other again.
• 
  Jukaschar

  Mostly raw and angry, sometimes delicate, always highly emotional poetry. I must admit I was a bit surprised and taken aback by the frequent cursing.
  In general I liked the poems. I feel like it did open up my horizon, so that's a good thing. Personally, I can at the moment relate most to the theme of motherhood, so I enjoyed everything related to childbearing, birth and being a mother and found the radicalism of Chin's writing to be a breath of fresh air.
• 
  Takako

  A tour de force. The passion and the vulnerability. May need to revisit another time.
• 
  Crystal

  edit:
  
  I've been thinking of reclamation of identity in adulthood. For example, transracial adoptees who visit birth parents in adulthood or travel to the country they or their birth parents were originally from. While I'm still wary of certain aspects of the uglier parts of reclamation (see: DNA analysis making people feel bold in their use of slurs) that's not this so I'm retracting that earlier critique.
• 
  Kate

  An extensive collection containing a lifetime much bigger than its mere 200 pages. These poems float in many oceans at once and build bridges with language. These brilliant poems make you work for it. These poems full of hurt & anger & fear & love & forgiveness. These poems need to be devoured, savored, remembered.
• 
  Shivanee Ramlochan

  It's important that we have this, that we acknowledge we've been given something colossal, epic, raw, flawed, and breathing, by Staceyann. It feels valuable to be living in a world where this work is real, uncensored, and in your m-f-face.
• 
  Crystal

  Over a year later I find I can read the poem that caused me pause with more grace. Dealing with the concept of being mixed race myself instead of just Latine (which is an ethnicity, not a race) has been a learning curve these past few years.
• 
  Meagan Cahuasqui

  Propulsive, rhythmic poems that pack a punch and don't hold back. Unabashedly angry and filled with feminist rage. Some of the content could get overwhelming at times but that's just my opinion. It probably works for some people.
• 
  Megan Gafvert

  Staceyann is a badass lgbtq feminist woc icon, and her poetry reflects that
• 
  Ai Miller

  Some really gorgeous poetry and some I didn't love, though of course ymmv and it's an important collection nonetheless. I kind of wish it was more chronological--it just sort of threw me to do the whiplash of a poem about the Trump administration and then go back to a poem about the aftermath of 9/11.
  
  Definitely glad to have this collection out there, though, even if it wasn't my thing personally! Some of her poetry about being a lesbian was really really gorgeous, loved that.
• 
  keondra freemyn

  beautiful collection spanning chin's 20+ year career. it's exciting to see some of my favorite performance poems collected here (crossfire, nails, lesbian chasing straight) plus quite a few new poems. enjoyable collection for old fans and those who are new to her work. i will definitely be gifting these to poetry lovers in my life.
• 
  Julien

  This collection is absolutely stunning. The interplay of the political and the personal is so masterfully done and the poetry itself is perfect. You can feel the rhythm of the poems even through the page, which is sometimes hard for me with prose poetry. Also, the alliteration is awesome. It just flows so well and gorgeously. It truly is a bittersweet collection of poetry about the devastating and beautiful parts of surviving in the world today, especially as someone considered "other." The collection really captures a sense of fullness of experience, even the love poems are tinged with a sort of self-awareness that I found refreshing. All-in-all, it feels like a woman outlining the fullness of her being and contextualizing her existence with all the sense of purpose and doubt therein. It's beautiful -- the calls to action, the quiet moments, the wrestling with self-definition. All of it is stunning.
  
  I highly recommend this book to any poetry lovers, as well as anyone who really wants to really feel what it's like to survive in a world not made with you in mind. It's challenging, and full of righteous fury, sorrow, and love wrapped in fantastic language by a fantastic poet. Read it.
• 
  Lili Kim

  Notable lines:
  
  “some people cannot handle a woman on the loose”
  
  “and we know that revolutions take time / and sacrifice and lives to turn this world around”
  
  “the words Hijab/Jihad/Taliban were not yet known . . . we were determined to love our neighbors”
  
  “ . . . I will always believe you / in a world that regularly demonstrates how much it hates you / this is what it means to be assigned the label of Black and girl”
  
  “I wish I could just close my eyes and pretend / that none of this is happening / but if we do not keep our eyes open / the consequences will be catastrophic / every kind of resistance is necessary / when the arm of injustice persists / we have to develop new ways to resist / we have to keep trying/keep changing tactics”
  
  “I am only human / a frail light among other lights / we all flicker / fail each other / forgiveness is the thread that will always link us / lover / mother / stranger / even them that despise me / will only possess me / if I do not find a kernel of letting it go”
  
• 
  Karen A. Lloyd

  Staceyann Chin is hands down my favourite spoken word poet. I already knew a lot of the poems but finally, a collection!
  
  I remember the first time I watched Staceyann's performance of 'If Only Out of Vanity' on Def Poetry Jam many years ago, and was blown away by her unflinching, unapologetic passion and politics. I replayed it at least 10 times that day, and even more times for the next few weeks. I've been following her work ever since.
  
  Reading her work is great, but the best part of her craft is her performance. She is the queen of intonation, natural rhythm and expressiveness. The structure of the book didn't bring out much of that and sometimes it was a little flat. I think many people would benefit from using the audiobook (read by her) to enhance the experience.
  
  I also wish it had been structured by time periods, or even themes, since it spanned such a long period of her life and work. Would've been interesting to see her growth over the years.
  
  All in all a good read, but I definitely have a preference for her performances.
• 
  Ashley Cooper

  I had a hard time finishing this book, hence the 4/5 stars. But, I think the message is important and her voice needs to be heard. I just felt like a majority of the book was political, all of which I agreed with, so that wasn’t the problem, I just felt like I didn’t know her or why she felt the way she felt, it wasn’t expressive enough to me personally. I wanted to hear more about the pain and her experience then what needs to happen next, if that makes sense. Poetry is a great way to express feeling, and I felt I was often left with questions. But, I think people should read this book, it’s important.
• 
  Jenn

  "in the roll call for protection
  all Black bodies must be accounted for
  straight/queer/transgender
  lesbian/feminist/Muslim/man
  woman/immigrant/dark-skin/
  non-binary/tall/fat/skinny/light-skinned
  in the face of any killing
  our sorrow must be one/our rage must one
  though we speak with many voices
  
  we must rise with one sound
  
  we must call out the names of the dead
  Trayvon Martin
  Tamir Rice
  Yvette Smith
  Michael Brown
  Kiwi Herring
  Sean Bell
  Tarika Wilson
  Sandra Bland could have been any one of us"
• 
  Nia

  I once saw Chin perform. During her set, she stood up on a chair and suddenly became 20 ft. tall and made me feel the same way. This book of poems stirs the same feeling. It gives voice and validation to those of us with so many and not enough boxes to tick in our identity. It asks questions, peels back uncomfortable layers and, in the end, makes you extremely thankful to have her words during these times.
• 
  Sarah Pascarella

  In Chin's hands, poetry is a bold and blunt weapon to ward off the many forces that come for her and those she loves. It's also a seduction for those she desires, and an invitation to build community and chosen family for those who will embrace her, just as she is. Take it or leave it, each poem dares, and I'll take it: Overall, this collection is triumphant in the act of creation, a testament to not just surviving, but flourishing.
• 
  Tallon Kennedy

  These poems are fierce, unapologetically political, full of love and heartbreak and beauty. I've been waiting on this collection from Staceyann Chin for awhile, as I fell in love with her memoir when I read it a few years ago, and subsequently fell in love with her. While she has been an acclaimed and well-known poet for literal decades, particularly for her live performances which I've had the good luck of seeing, she never published a book of her poems (for reasons she explains in the preface). But finally, here it is, her collected poems over the last 20 years, and good lord was it worth the wait. Chin's writing is so raw, and she writes so powerfully against rape culture and white supremacy, using her own experiences to levy these wider cultural critiques. There's an especially irreverent poem about Donald Trump in here that's simply fantastic.
  
  A-
• 
  Katarzyna Bartoszynska

  These are fierce, beautiful poems. I loved their vulnerability, and their rage, and their sexiness. They are definitely meant to be heard out loud, and I hope I get to hear the poet perform someday...
• 
  sarah panic

  The audiobook where Staceyann Chin reads her works is outstanding. The power in her voice is astounding. It felt like her voice filled the room.. from my headphones.
  
  My favorites from the collection are by far, “Tweet This, Motherf*cker”
  “Not My President”
  “Some of the Things I Believe”
• 
  Sassafras Lowrey

  I've heard Staceyann perform multiple times and I'm glad to see her poetry finally published in a book
• 
  Ariel

  I wanted to love this, and I’m glad it exists, but the book format doesn’t have the same punch and life that her spoken word performance of her poems does.
• 
  Jo Brown

  All great poetry! Only thing is some of these would seem to work better being performed than they do on the page.
• 
  Rohan Zhou-lee

  Beautiful. And very needed right now.
• 
  Kim

  Powerful collection - StaceyAnn - takes on prisoners
• 
  Sasha

  Pure fire