| Title | : | Sweetdark |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Format Type | : | Kindle , Hardcover , Paperback , Audiobook & More |
| Number of Pages | : | - |
| Publication | : | First published October 8, 2020 |
| Awards | : | Goodreads Choice Award Poetry (2020) |
London (and occasionally the apocalypse) as a backdrop, Sweetdark explores the transience of existence, the pursuit of vulnerability, pleasure, chaos, and the dichotomy of a life wholly experienced, full of so much darkness and so much sweetness, sometimes in the same breath.
Sweetdark Reviews
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I woke up this morning needing to read this book today. I must have dreamt of her last night and Oh how I loved her. Every single word, she was breathtaking.
I will carry her with me, close to my heart, in my soul and read her again, and again, and again.
My sweet Sweetdark 🖤
Promise
when the constellations separate / and instead spell out future horrors / when the future is a sewn mouth / when the earth is a flattened disc / when the stringy dark screams back / when the crows break against the wind-shield / when the past is sealed with the clean fucking wax-teeth of all the starving eastern whip-poor- wills / when the oceans ascend in a wall of jittering droplets / when nothing has gone the blue and human way we wanted / when another blameless robin goes unborn / when the brain is a knot of barbed wire / we pick / and pick / and pick / here's what i'll do / i'll say goodnight / lover / see you in the morning / and it's
always true / believe me / believe me / forget everything i've said / it's all wrong / don't trust a lick of it / except this / goodnight / goodnight / the sweetness is coming -
Well I gobbled this guy up in a day which is how I always intend to read good poetry. That’s also a great sign & way to preface this love-filled review. This is without a doubt the best poetry collection I’ve read all year & is one of my new favorites of all time. This is easily Savannah’s best poetry work in my opinion although I loved Graffiti as well. There was just something about this collection that can’t be described in words, but I’ll try my best. Savannah has a magnificent way of intertwining the grit & gore of life with the beauty in the mundane. She writes a lot about the chaos of it all, the meaning of living if we’re all just little grubs sucking the earth dry & what’s with all these FEELINGS? These are just some of the questions raised in this collection of beautifully strung together words. I always feel the need to add that when I first started reading Savannah’s work, I was incredibly overwhelmed by her vocabulary & quite honestly, I felt stupid reading it. It took me about a year to come back to her writing once I was more well-read & I was astonished at how much better I was able to comprehend it. This isn’t to say that Savannah is a pretentious writer, it’s just to say that she has a way with words much different than how others speak. They’re all hand-picked, dissected & full of meaning & that’s what I’ve come to love best about her work. I loved this collection for its wonderful way of depicted the absurdity of living, feeling, loving, & contemplating. A MUST READ if you love poetry!
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Sweetdark is as brilliant and carefully crafted as Brown's previous work, Graffiti and The Truth About Keeping Secrets. Sweetdark depicts the simplest pleasures of life alongside some of the largest philosophical questions: Will I ever stop being afraid of death? Is this as good as it gets? Can I live better than this?
Brown’s work, alongside its subject matter, has noticeably matured from her previous collection, Graffiti, which Brown released when she was just nineteen. Sweetdark is a carefully crafted collection on the darkness of life and its promise that it will end, and the sweetness of it despite that fact. Brown’s poems detail the everyday to the out of this world, yet the strength in her writing allows us to view these settings as irrevocably intertwined.
Brown’s poems detail the everyday to the out of this world, yet the strength in her writing allows us to view these settings as irrevocably intertwined. Brown forces us to consider how much we take the ordinary for granted (‘the walk home from the night / bus takes ten minutes and somehow/ I don’t appreciate a damn second’) and how it is wedded to our fear of death – this ominous impact which is heading ‘closer and closer and closer.’
Brown’s evocative and palpable imagery allows us an insight into a world which is beautifully mundane yet familiar; where seeing parrots in Greenwich park or sharing drinks with a lover gives us that feeling of immortality that ‘we were here, so far from death.’ Brown’s ability to articulate such sentiments is as brilliant as it is chilling, as she effortlessly identifies the joys and horrors of being human.
Sweetdark, ultimately, is interested in time and our lack of it. Brown enlightens the reader to the transience of life and her narrator’s realisation of the void, which seems intrinsically linked to her own experience. Existentialism frames each poem, taking the simplicity of shared experience to ask philosophical questions, particularly in the poem ‘void/you.’
Sweetdark is as adventurous in its vivid imagery as it is in it’s diverse range of poetic form. Each poem’s structure is carefully chosen to fit each narrative. Moreover, in Sweetdark, figurative language is often interspersed with a tone of colloquialism which fits seamlessly into the poetry.
Writing for a millennial and Gen-z audience, this frankness is refreshing and grounded – Sweetdark is not a collection aloft in pretentious ideals. Rather, Brown is interested in questioning the reader directly about the queries she poses, which are harder to dismiss when asked in such an understandable manner: ‘Now you know you can die. And what/ you gonna do about it, huh?’.
Hence, Sweetdark’s writing style is oxymoronic in itself. Both accessible and complex, the collection allows us to live vicariously through each poem – through the highs and lows of living, through the mundane to the frightening.
Brown has succeeded in writing a collection that, though deeply personal, is universally relatable. Sweetdark is a poetic triumph that holds words that will stay with you long after you finish the last page.
https://www.redbrick.me/review-sweetd... -
i have no idea what the poems mean 70% of the time but pretty words, i love. i just wanna have a conversation with savannah brown please.
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savannah brown i love you so much, thank you for the peculiarity and the sensibility of your words, thank you for the always accurate tenderness and despair of the unique emotions you choose to portray and display as if they were more than pure suffering, as if they were worthy of beauty and calm. the most intricate words embroidering themselves to each other in the most obvious yet singular ways, creating connections and renewed sounds.
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Haven't even READ IT and I know it'll be fantastic! Can't wait:)
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Savannah Brown‘s second poetry collection presents an existential yet realistic and personal read which is a stylistic joy to all the senses. Brown’s rich writing looks its reader straight in the eye and dares them to embrace the void, as well as the chaotic beauty of ordinary life. It delivers the juxtaposition of dark and sweet that its’ title promises.
Sweetdark splits into 3 parts and explores a wide range of themes; from death and destruction, to fragile self-reflection and insecurity. Each poem’s form and structure varies from page to page, pulling the reader in and giving them what they least expect next. Brown adeptly uses space in her writing to create both a scream and a whisper into the chasm of the universe- and it’s brilliant.
In particular void/you; me, covered in ash; ego, and I want you to look at the moon shine through for the clever craftsmanship and charm they exude. These are words to be cherished by anyone who has the pleasure to read them.
This collection is a delicacy- to be tasted, considered and tried again to fully appreciate its’ artistry. To fully take in and relish in the inviting yet terrifying sweetness of this poetry, you may have to read it more than once on some occasions to let it sink in. But is that such a bad thing when it’s just SO good? The order and structure of the poems feel just right and Brown greets you just as massively and personally as she says goodbye, giving you solace and never shying away from the uncomfortable. Her ability to create such a range of delicate and painful moods is impressively haunting: never failing to stretch through the cracks and concoct living, breathing poetry.
Sweetdark masterfully examines the magnitude and brevity of existence, whilst asking the reader to explore their own beliefs and perception of the universe, as well as the miniscule havoc in life. It’s a love letter, a song, an argument and one’s deepest and most anxiety ridden thoughts, capturing both human connection and the ethereal in one gorgeous book brimming with anger and marvel facing the world’s end.
Sweetdark is as timeless as it is sublime. I would highly recommend! -
While the rating I give this book might say otherwise, the expectations with which I went into this read were pretty much met fully and unapologetically and I'm glad that I didn't ruin this experience by wanting more.
It's easy to bash on this, and it's just as easy to overpraise it, so I want to quickly run through the most obvious problems: the poem structures become forced and feel too rigid by the third time each of them gets reused (because all of them get reused to death, with a couple of exceptions, the only notable ones being If I've ever made something beautiful and I want you to look at the moon), the imagery, while brilliant, starts to feel like filler meant to replace actual metaphors (because it's impossible to read two lines without having adjectives thrown at you like sand to blind you to the fact that not much has been said in the two lines) and the whole experience boils down to how much you are willing to project onto what's being said and set up throughout each poem, as, while it's clear that a lot of emotion went into it, it's just as clear that technically there isn't much going on.
Now, to get into the nitty-gritty of my experience with Sweetdark; I am neither impressed nor too disappointed with it. I got what I wanted: beautiful images and easy-to-digest poems, something to read as a welcomed break to heavier books and poetry volumes. This book is in no way shallow dribble, but it gets dangerously close to it at points, saving itself abruptly with cool ideas and unique combinations of words. I would've loved to see more wordplay, maybe some clever rhyme schemes, but I'd be lying to say that the poems don't work otherwise.
Solid three stars overall, not much else to say. -
I wrote an essay about existential wonder in Savannah Brown's 'Sweetdark' for
Our Culture. Here's an excerpt:
Rather than wallowing in a nihilistic pit of despair, Sweetdark opts for a more comprehensive approach, drawing on the whole spectrum of human emotion to probe the endless contradictions that can be found within it. The dichotomy in its title suggests not so much an oscillation between two not-quite-opposites but the simultaneous existence of both, and the poems here evoke a kind of intense desire to experience as much as possible, or what isn’t – to taste infinity and marvel at the vastness of the cosmos while being fully aware of one’s powerlessness in the face of it. Sometimes the “curse of yearning” manifests more as a lack, “the black chasm of want”, a void expanding. Sometimes thinking bigger and bigger only makes you feel small and irreparably alone. And sometimes, being consumed by the ocean is the only way to avoid staring at the sun, that burning thing that keeps reminding us of our doomed fate. “Do you know the weight of infinite stinging atoms, the ones you want to love, bent on your destruction?” the poetic voice asks on the opening poem ‘void/ you’, daring what could be a younger version of her own self, “horizon-eyed”, to “step into the tide of a trillion tomorrows, crush below the wet and pulverized mess spat by each frothing horror, and wade into the dark, like water.” -
savannah is just so brilliant and this poetry collection is easily her best work yet- existential nihilism has never sounded so beautiful
“after the yellow hours offer their timid
ought-to's we invent a new twisted
collection of sounds that fold themselves
into the wooden nooks, different words
for the same shriek:
we were here, so far from death.” -
I once compared poetry to visiting a castle and imagining how people lived back in the day. I made up countless stories walking there, but none of us will never know how people back then truly lived. To me Savannah Brown’s Graffiti and other poems was the exception to this.
Sweetdark feels like visiting a museum with headphones on. Some of the art is easy to understand, to identify with. To recognize what it must feel like to be human and how we all carry our inner sadness. Savannah Brown puts it on display and makes us all listen to the balance of life and death that is humanity.
But sometimes there’s a crackle reaching my ears. I would reread poems, trying to guess their meaning. I could spend hours doing this. Staring and wondering about every word and most of all why some could make me feel so much and make my heart swell, but others left me wondering what it all meant.
Maybe I need to return to this book after life has taught me more. Perhaps then I could try a new set of headphones that would not filter out words and their meaning. I started out the book with this sentiment and I don’t know if that means this makes it a great poetry collection or not. -
I've been putting off reading this for a long time and when I did, oh boy, wasn't I dumbfounded? Every poem feels like a ball of unrefined emotions, ineffable and speaks directly to the heart. Deserves a visible place on the shelf while being abutted by camelias.
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I was just going through graffiti earlier and I thought "man I really hope savannah releases a new poetry collection soon" and LITTLE DID I KNOW!!!!
I'm really looking forward to this one! -
Savannah Brown has always intrigued me and I’m constantly blown away by her mind and her writing. Sweetdark showcases the things that make Savannah shine beautiful and morbid things. Her vocabulary never ceases to amaze me and this collection of poems cleverly and powerfully explores the mundane and the powerful. It captures the sweet and dark parts of being alive, specifically our deepest existential fears.
There’s a lot I could highlight in the book, but these are the two lines which resonated with me the most, both from different poems:
“Everywhere a rotten siren follows me, forewarning an inevitable event with a wail no one hears.”
“Closure is a manmade phenomenon.” -
i remember reading graffiti as a freshman in high school, in awe of the kind of poetry that would define my teenage years, accompanied by the most tumblr-esque drawings you could ever imagine. it's so lovely to have grown along with sav, and reading this collection of poetry has me so excited for her next. sweetdark is so raw and real and i'm definitely going to be thinking about its words for a long time!
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so the writing comes off as if i have to read it altogether in one breath, and the voice in my head has quite a difficult time keeping up. perhaps i like listening to savannah brown reciting poetry than i do reading it myself.
these pieces could really benefit comma usage, even if they all do come off as the same. -
"listen, worlds
end every day. uncountable amounts of destruction
since the first page. little deaths, too, too small to even tally.
loss webs between all moments, everywhere a space
where something once lived. here’s my real worry:
i find myself at the brink of being’s quiet crystalline
stream, the estuary emptying into the pool of all things
and non-things, and the synapses won’t want to quit,
and my mouth will still be wet with bubbling atoms,
and i won’t be able to bring myself to kneel in the clay.
i’ve done so little living. how could there possibly be someday
more to lose? lie to me. tell me that in some faraway
future history of humanity, someone like me notices
this attempt at goodness, any of our exploits, any of those
golden hours where we had everything and nothing hurt—
is it too much to hope to be reanimated in the brain,
the tendril wrapped around a cortex? but there’s a whole
rolling world for my myth to attend, and on one of those
indigo nights, there will bound an unusually playful
star, or a ripple of air otherwise headed home which jerks
like a peal of laughter to the sea, or a raindrop which takes
the shape of a hummingbird, or a second hand of a clock
which halts in place for an imperceptible instant
and bends a little at the elbow, suddenly remembering." -
i have yearned to pick sweetdark up since last year after hearing a never-ending praise by lady dakota warren herself and truly her recommendations never disappoint as i am completely enamoured by the brilliance of savannah brown’s poetry. i have not read warren’s on sun swallowing and yet from the pieces i’ve seen and read, i think it’ll be a great companion to sweetdark as they do compliment each other well. this has been a quick read before bed but i will definitely return for some personal annotations 💌 savannah brown your literary alchemy has victoriously enchant me and i crave for nothing but more of whatever magic this one is.
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i will eat whatever savannah brown feeds me out of the palm of her hand
4/5 stars
pretty pretty words
as a word connoisseur i have to say this is an exquisite dish
and while yes you do start to wonder whether brown has a point to all this language and it does get a bit repetitive she always manages to reel you back in my the last handful of lines
“i don’t even need you to remember. just know, now—seven billion sunsets and here’s me, convinced we’re seeing the same one.” -
5 STARS!
Pretty gosh darn amazing.
Savannah Brown once tweeted "i want to f*** the end of the world" and if that intrigues you this is the poetry collection for you!!
Just... so ethereal and weird and beautiful.... I don't know how to articulate my thoughts... just read it okay then you will understand....
Some personal faves: view including cable cars (I actually gasped out loud... at a poem... pure witchcraft), too hostile too ticking (i need to never/ be touched again. i need every human body stacked/ on top of mine, crushing) and in anticipation of the atom bomb (!!!) but really even the ones that were too big-brain for me to understand right now were just so overwhelmingly beautiful.
I could have any line from Sweetdark (what a title) tattooed on my body and be happy with it. I can't wait for what Savannah Brown does next.
5 STARS!!!!! -
Wow. Wow. WOW.
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I quite honestly find it challenging to get into the writings of modern poets b u t savannah brown hits different that I’m even compelled to write a short review in awe of its glorious writing. I absolutely adore the themes discussed in her poetry and I’d never thought I’d find myself relating to its existential views. omg the vivid imagery of the universe is so so amazing as well. 11/10.
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Reading lots of poetry this year.
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TBRed after hearing the author read
this lovely poem on the youtubes. -
Savannah Brown has always had such a way with words. Maybe it's because English isn't my native language, but I've had this fascination with how she strings sentences together to create something so raw and real (even if I don't always fully understand it) for quite a few years now, so it's always a delight to get to read (or listen to - I did both!) new poetry from her. With a more existential tone, Sweetdark paints a picture of the good (sweet) and the hard (dark) parts of being alive, knowing one day you'll die.
I think this collection, unlike her previous one, Graffiti, needs to be revisited in order to properly appreciate it. Hence why I decided to get the audiobook as well, needing both my eyes and ears to grasp the meanings, the images. And hey, if you're interested, I really recommend the youtube video of her reading "a growing thing" if you want a little taste of what you can find in Sweetdark. It's still my favorite one in the whole collection. -
(4.5 stars) WOW i was not expecting this to be as wonderful as it was; savannah brown’s power of sentence structure and form is brilliant, she twists words into shapes you’ve never seen, and then moves on to the next poem as if she hadn’t just changed your world. i can’t even choose a favourite. so so so good
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I’ve realised I am, frankly, terrible at reading poetry - and this review will primarily be an explanation as to why.
I’ve been known to read a 650 page novel in a day. I never really read poetry - I thought, why the hell not as my friend graciously leant me her copy.
I’ve since learned why I don’t read poetry.
Do not get me wrong, Savannah Brown is a wonderful writer. Her use of structure and language is powerful and I found some of the works super interesting. This is not related to her (hence the utterly neutral rating).
I find it an oddly restrictive art form because it’s almost as though it is somebodies diary - and you are forced to move onto a completely new subject very quickly. Some of them read like particularly long rambles, something which, once again, I didn’t find very enjoyable but I also will completely get that that is just the genre of poetry and that I should shut up and stick to reading books.
Basically - was a nice collection. Poetry nerds please don’t attack me :( -
could not have picked a more perfect time in my life to reread this
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I appreciated and enjoyed the poetry, however none of it resonated with me unfortunately.
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Pleasantly surprised by this one! Definitely making it into my favorite poetry collections list🪐
