Review: Hold Your Own

Hold Your Own by Kate Tempest
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The framework of this poetry collection is based on the myth of the blind prophet Tiresias, who lived for some time in both the male and female gender. Truth be told, I'm still a bit cold on mythological beings, and these poems were my least favorite of the lot. It is clear that Tempest found quite a bit of symmetry with Tiresias, and many poems outside the Tiresias-specific poems also look at gender through lenses of love, relationships, and stereotypes. (But at one point, she uses the word tranny, something I see as a slur, and I can only hope that it is somehow different in her south London world.)

My #1 poem from the entire collection:

Thirteen (see the poet perform it on YouTube


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