I think I’ve read about 4 poetry collections, like, ever… and they were not modern. So, yeah, I’m not the target reader here. Or one educated in the form. But, with that caveat, here we go.

If I were putting it unkindly: if a poetry collection and an inspirational Pinterest board had a baby, it would be this book. It is an unfamiliar form and I wouldn’t say I was entirely comfortable with it. That being said, there were a lot of gorgeous moments here – both in the text and in the accompanying artwork. And, I really admire the author for disregarding our preconceived notions of form. I think it is largely due to this that I'm a little at a loss to synopsize the reading experience I've had here. Which is impressive in itself, if nothing else - it is certainly good to be challenged and this is definitely not a book I'll soon forget!

The narrative (loosely speaking) is a conversation between the poet and Aphrodite, each meditating on love, on survival, on the battles we wage against ourselves and others. I was very intrigued by the concept – and admittedly, as a huge fan of mythological retellings, I’d have been happy with even more of that 'story'. But, the bulk of the text is meditations on healing after trauma, with both allegorical and concrete interludes on the subject.

My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the arc to review.

Queer, Greek and Godly.
(in a good way).

I read this entire collection sitting on the beach and watching the tide slowly come in. Trista Mateers poetry is provocative when read alone but together each of the poems connects to form one larger narrative about the female experience and healing. And when this is phrased through one of the toughest Greek Goddess's what's not to like?

With beautiful art and beautiful poetry throughout, I can't think of a single reason not to buy this book when it's released on October 1st 2019.

#AphroditeMadeMeDoIt #NetGalley

I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

P.S Trigger Warnings are at the beginning of the book so its easy to skip anything that may trigger you. (Seriously what a good book!)

This short and powerful book combines free verse poetry, prose, collages, and illustrations, giving it the feel of an empowering handmade zine. I enjoyed the unique reading experience, and the compelling drive of the text.

I love the exploration of the Aphrodite character, and the feminist perspective. The chapter names such as "Aphrodite Airs Her Grievances" and "Aphrodite Speaks On Love" were great markers to the story, and I interpreted them to be a bit tongue and cheek. It was one of my favourite parts of the book. I also enjoyed the musings on the phrase "you can't love others until you love yourself," saying that it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of love. There is a lot of wisdom in this book.

Anyone who enjoys zines, feminism, an Greek Mythology should give this unique book a try.

I feel privileged I got the chance to read this incredible piece of work. Aphrodite Made Me Do is a collection of poems and prose. It deals with topics such as mental illness, trauma, LGBTQ+, forgiveness and love.

It is a story of hope, healing and surviving whatever has happened to you. It talks about self-care and being responsible for your own healing and of finding the real meaning of love.

I loved the illustrations and typography picture included in between poems. They added a lovely touch and related to what was being said.

I will be buying a copy of this book when it’s released as well as also checking out some of the author’s previous works. This book is perfect for anyone struggling with their own healing process and anyone trying to find meaning to their own life.

Here are a few of my favourite quotes ..

"I’m afraid of love. I’m afraid of other things. My soft body was a crime in my mother’s house."

"The same way
She rose from the sea, you rise like a phoenix
From the ashes of things that no longer serve you."

"People expect all stories of abuse to be loud and angry but they’re not."

"It is never too late to realize
You don’t want to be on the other
You’re walking. You can never go back but you can always chart a new course. Give yourself permission to explore every aspect of your being."

Poetry has a way of exploring truths that make them seem both obvious to the current culture and relevant to all. Trista Mateer has made a career of it. Blending art and poetry and fiction into a narrative about what society expects of women and how we are capable of so much more than those expectations.

Mateer also encourages and promotes self care and provides ways both for the readers and for the people around them.
She seemlessly blends fictional stories of Aphrodite with a modern women looking for love. She uses the background and myths of Aphrodite to showcase the ways in which we twist peoples stories to fit our narrative and how our expectations change based on the new story.

Aphrodite Made Me Do It is a powerful piece full of history, longing, encouragement, and empowerment that should be read carefully. There is discussion of rape, abuse (allusions to both physical and emotional), body issues, and heartbreak.

A modern approach to poetry incorporating greek mythology with goddess Aphrodite. I enjoyed this more than I typically do with these modern approaches.

This poetry collection was a beautifully composed back and forth between the authors voice, and Aphrodite, correcting her image in the mind of man. Regardless of what you might think, she has been portrayed wrong in history, once being called Gravedigger, Aphrodite the Unholy. For she had glorious names before they called her something sweet.

"I am older than the poets and I am
older than the pens.
I am older than the stars and the ocean
I crawled out of."

and my personal fav quote:

"I belong to no one. They never wrote that part down."

And ohh boy did this kill me. It drove daggers in my heart and fed my soul at the same time. At one point I was highlighting almost every sentence, so I just ended up bookmarking the chapter. No WORDS!
(And the Patroloclus/Achilles mention, 10/10 thx made me cry i hate u)

Unfortunately, I enjoyed the sections where the poet talked much less. It seemed to be clumped together more, repetitive sharp sentences over, and over, and over, again usually filling at least two pages. It was boring and not even worth reading to me. I just eventually skipped those parts! But- when that came to an end and it slowed down, the poet would say something profound. I couldn't help but stop and look at it for a minute and wonder, "why couldn't the entire book be like this?"

Another thing I feel it is impossible not to address is the gorgeous dividing photos between sections. The text overlaying the art, the tarot cards adding perfect meaning and creating an atmosphere of fantasy. The section titles were perfect, "APHRODITE SPEAKS ON LOVE" and "THE POET AIRS HER GRIEVANCES".
All around, I was frustrated with this, and was tempted to give it 3 stars, but because of the way I personally connected with the Aphrodite section and the fact that it is one of the better poetry pieces I have read, I will settle on 4.

So, I typically do not like to rate poetry. It feels kind of dirty to rate someone's blood sweat and tears on a scale of 1 to 5. For the sake of this site only I will great that says 4 and 1/2 Stars. A quick read, but only in time. while it may only take you an hour to read this book, it is going to stay with you. The thoughts and words and pros within These pages is so powerful. My only criticism of this are some of the images. I really enjoyed the images that looked as though they were sketched or drawn, but I didn't feel like the images that included a photo of a person were necessary and for me, they added a tackiness to this very powerful selection of poetry. overall a good read and one that I would love to have on my bookshelf.

Loved the mix between visuals and words. It was a delightful read with heavy topics about the ultimate fight of loving one's self despite everything you go through. It was also nice to see the mythology incorporated into the narrative.

I really love trista mateer. I own a few of her other books, and her instagram account is one of my favorites to follow. Her work is beautiful and heart wrenching and oh so authentic. That said, this book was not my favorite. It’s significantly different from her other books and is more disjointed. I enjoyed the sections that were from “the poet” point of view but was slightly confused by the sections from Aphrodite’s view.

I’ve always been a huge fan of Trista Mateer, but this collection has become a new favorite of mine. It’s not often I find a book of poetry that correlated with exactly what I’ve been feeling, but when I read Trista’s words, I feel as if we are twin souls. Trista explores love, trauma, self love, sexual assault, healing, homophobia, and embracing who you truly are. A must read.

Review of Aphrodite Made Me Do It by Trista Mateer

I received an ARC copy on netgalley of this poetry collection, in exchange for my honest review.

"To sing of love is almost always to sing of war."

I've followed Trista's journey as a poet for a very long time. All the way back before her collection Honey Bee, when she was still only on Tumblr.
From there her poetry has grown, while never losing touch with who she is. And always having a consistent voice.
Now typically with poetry collections, I tend to skip a poem here and there. As they just don't click with me. However with Trista's poetry, I can find something to connect with in each poem. Whether it's the whole poem, or simply just a phrase.
Her writing always manages to spark emotion. I will be giving this collection a 4.5 star.

"She says, "I thought you weren't looking for love."
I say, "That doesn't mean I'm not hoping it will find me."

I really enjoyed and appreciated this collection. As soon as I realised it was an illustrated collection, I did begin to worry that it would be yet another Milk and Honey ripoff, but I'm glad that I was wrong. It was much, much more than that.

For me, possibly because I'm a Classicist, the poems about Aphrodite were by far the strongest. I would happily read a whole book of poetry from her point of view written by this author. Her voice was so incisive and brutal that whenever the 'poet' took over, I was almost disappointed. That's not to say that those poems were bad, but they seemed much less original; I've read Mateer's work before, and a lot of them could honestly have been copied and pasted from other collections. There's only so many ways to rewrite the same poem about self care and believing in yourself, I think.

For that reason, I much preferred the beginning of this collection. Although Mateer herself states that she's tired of writing poems about her trauma ('fuck another poem [...]') and wants to write about healing instead, the truth is that the poetry about healing was almost trite and much less original than the poetry about Medusa's violation, or Aphrodite's misrepresentation. That's by no means to say that poets should only write about darkness, but it almost felt like Mateer's heart wasn't in the latter half. As though she felt she should be writing a certain kind of collection which had a cohesive narrative from trauma to recovery. I may well be wrong about that, but it didn't feel as authentic to me.

That said, I did love how there was an over-arching theme in this collection. Leaving it on a positive note was a clever move, and it felt hopeful rather than dark and unending. The actual writing is beautiful; I highlight lines that I love when I'm reading, and I must've highlighted a good quarter of the book. Trista Mateer is clearly a huge talent, and I eagerly await whatever else she publishes.

Content warning (which is showcased in the e-arc I read, but want to share here as well!): body image, sexual assault, rape, eating disorders, queerphobia, emotional abuse, physical abuse, gore, blood, death, and fire

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read an e-arc of this book in exchange for a honest review!

This collection of poetry was beautifully done. There’s so much that’s showcased in this collection (from body image, love, and the understanding of the complexity relationships can have.) that I truly had so much that was written stand out in my mind because I related to the messages the author was getting across in my own way. It was a quick reading experience that packed a punch and one I’ll be thinking about for a while.

I've typed out a review for Aphrodite Made Me Do It four times now, and each time I've failed to express my thoughts on it, so forgive me if my ramblings make no sense.

This book made me angry. It made me angry at everything I have to go through as a woman, as a queer woman, and it made me angry at every male relative that has ever belittled me for my age, my gender, my opinions. It brought out the side of me that is usually reserved for family dinners when I'm forced to sit across the table from that one uncle who always thinks himself superior because he's a forty year old rich man and I'm just a clueless little girl in his eyes.
However, I also saw the beauty of being who I am in the lines I read. I read that I am not "required to be submissive." There is beauty in being angry because it's anger that stops us from keeping our mouths shut whilst the rest of the world tramples all over us.
There is also softness and comfort expressed in the language and the artwork. If I got upset when I was little, my nannan would let me lie in her lap and slowly rub circles on my tummy, telling me everything was okay. This book kind of felt like the memories I have of those times. That might not make sense to some people, but it's the only way I can express the comfort this book made me feel, the safety I found in its words.
I'll definitely be giving this a second read just to re-asses my feelings and interpretation of it, as well as buying a physical copy when it's released.

I’m not a big poetry fan, but I am a big Greek Mythology fan. The cover for this collection immediately caught my eye and ‘Aphrodite’ was all I needed to put in a request for it. I’ve found it difficult to invest in most of the poetry I’ve read recently (and there hasn’t been much), but I thought I’d give this one a go since the mythological subject matter was right up my alley.

First of all, the art is really cool. I ADORED the artwork for the chapter pages, and the illustrations and mixed media art were fascinating as well. The subject matter in this is powerful, and though there are some messages that I feel have been a bit overused in recent poetry collections, there were also some new, unique ones, too. I especially loved all of the Aphrodite POV chapters. I found it easier to connect with her because I knew the background of her myths, and I really enjoyed reading from her perspective, since it’s not one I get to read from often. I’m not too fond of the constant repetitive nature of some of the passages, but there are some small parts within that are compelling.

I originally was going to rate this three stars, but I went through it a second time and found there was more that resonated with me. There’s a lot of great writing in here and I’ll probably go through it a time or two more just to continue highlighting. Both times I’ve read the entire thing in one sitting, which I think it what works against me when I read poetry. I’m going to try going through this one or two poems at a time so I can have space to digest each one properly. Overall, this is a nice little collection. I don’t have many poetry recommendations to give, but this would be one of them! Aphrodite is a badass goddess, MMKAY?

‘You are not required to be small. You are not required to be pleasant. You are not required to be conventional.’

I think I will reread this one a lot, I ended up bookmarking a lot of pages to go back to. There is so much to take from Trista Mateer’s words, so much that I needed to hear. The contrast between the poet and Aphrodite worked so well and I love the incorporation of mythology in the prose. All of the pictures are equally as beautiful as the words and are the kind of thing I’d put up as prints on my walls. I would definitely buy this book to physically own and I think it would also make a great gift.

also +10 points for mention of achilles and patroclus 💛🧡

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Told in a series of author introspective and conversations with the Greek goddess Aphrodite, this collection of poetry hits with the force of a sucker-punch. Exploring queer themes, sexual and familial trauma, and self worth, this book leaves you breathless but hopeful for healing.

A special thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Genuinely caught off guard by this one. The poet does a wonderful job of weaving vivid imagery, Greek mythology and a strong message of self care together into a rather strong collection. The prose was heartfelt and never came across as insincere or overbearing at any point.

I liked it a lot.

Recommended.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Not my cup of tea. I thought I was going to like it based on the description, However the writing style wasn’t for me, but based on that it could’ve been a good story so I’m not going to talk to many stars because of one minor detail that I didn’t like.