This was a very promising collection. Could feel the grief and the feelings with every line. Wasn't the biggest fan with the way it started with the mother but then went on to the major stuff. But overall great work

I've enjoyed every recorded performance Natasha T. Miller has online, particularly thanks to her voice and tone. You can hear it in this collection quite clearly, and it makes you connect to her stories as so much more than words on the page. Her poems are a kind and quiet ache.

I am someone who is quite new to poems but I have a very close friend who adores them.

A friend send a passage from this into a chat and it really struck me. At that point I knew I wanted to read this.

So many of the poems struck me hard and really made me feel something.
They are so beautifully written and so thought provoking that I would recommend them to friends with even a slight interest on poetry.

"Butcher" by Natasha T. Miller is a powerful, profound and somehow overwhelming collection of poems. Every word holds such a great amount of pain and emotion: it is nearly impossible to read all on the go, you need time to digest and think out.

It is Evident that Natasha's heart is full of anger and sorrow. She lost her beloved brother, she struggles with acts of racism... she simply wants to raise her voice and stop inequality, homophobia, racism, pain.

Maybe some poems are not powerful as many others, but the emotion enclosed in these words is huge.

Here is "Grief", the poem that touched me the most.

"It’s like opening the fridge
every few minutes hoping
that there will be food.

Except the fridge is your
heart, and the food is a
person you’ll never see again."

Butcher by Natasha T. Miller is a powerful collection that speaks to grief, inequality, racism, and homophobia. Ms Miller's words are raw and unfiltered, and the result is a reading experience that is almost submersive in its emotional palpability. What particularly stood out for me was the unequivocal message to those whose response to Black Lives Matter is that all lives matter. The collection as a whole is evocative, unabashed, and utterly beautiful in its honesty. Recommended.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Button Poetry for an ARC of this title.

Poetry is not something I tend to read too much of. The description of this book however draw me in and I am glad I ventured outside of my usual genre.

You can tell from the first few words this collection of poems holds immense emotion and meaning to the author. Miller is writing from the heart and that heart is angry and in pain, following the death of her brother.

In such a relatively short number of words Miller covers a vast array of subjects and whilst it was tough to read it was also beautiful. Her poems ‘To existing being enough’ and ‘Grief’ touched me in a way I will keep in my heart for a long time.

I think it’s so incredibly important to have works out in the world that speak the raw and unabashed truth, because it serves as a learning experience for the reader. ‘Butcher’ speaks of grief, addiction, death, the LGBTQ+ community, and racial inequality for people of colour in such a phenomenal way.

The poetry was beautiful, complex and painted such incredible imagery.

I received a free ARC copy of ‘Butcher’ in exchange for my honest review thanks to the Natasha T. Miller, the publisher, and NetGalley

"The ocean is not always a tsunami. The wind is not always a tornado. You are no less powerful in all your stillness."

Such a beautiful, readable collection, touching on experiences of grief and loss, Black lives, and being a queer woman (and being a queer, Black woman experiencing grief). Like with all collections, not all the poems landed for me, but there was so much to enjoy and admire.

I usually don't gravitate towards poetry. I am a lover of fiction but this book may have converted me. The poems were beautiful, easy to read and hard hitting. I particularly enjoyed the BLM response. The writing is fluent and all the poems flow in a way that you can read from one into another. A really enjoyable collection of work.

I wish it was longer. Natasha T. Miller's poetry collection on grief is palpable. It speaks to our times, to the lives of BIPOC and LGBTQ identities, and how to be the person left missing someone. Artistically broken down into sections of meat cut and served, Miller discusses personal losses and community losses.

Particular poems that most moved me included "Ten Things You Sound Like When You Say 'all lives matter' in response to Black Lives Matter," "Nobody's Body is a Crime," "They Say," and "I Learned of Grief too Late."

This book is educational, emotional, and powerful.

This is the definition of modern poetry.

I had already watched the author perform their poetry on Button Poetry's youtube, and was very excited to see more poetry from them. Miller's poetry is very raw and powerful, making the title "Butcher" very appropriate, both because of the poetry itself and the themes and the author's feeling of being treated like cattle as a gay black woman in America.

It's divided in 5 chapters, all with the names of cattle meat. The author takes apart their life and feelings with each poem. Some poems are very personal, some are more of a societal critique, but every single one is strong, every single one manages to make you feel, and they are still relatable even though they are the author's life. The poems pull on our empathetic side.

I would recommend you read the poems out loud, for many of them work best as slam poetry.

This is a book filled with grief and injustice. If you enjoy powerful poetry, read Butcher.

This collection of poems centres around Miller’s attempts to navigate grief after the loss of her brother, her mother’s alcoholism, and the everyday struggles she faces as a Black, queer woman in modern America.

Miller’s experience as a performance poet and activist really shine through, even as her voice is condensed into text form. There’s a directness to her writing style that makes the pieces at once approachable and impactful. There’s no hiding behind complex rhythms or elaborate imagery here; the themes laid bare with gut-punch clarity. Given the scope of the topics at hand – racism, homophobia, love and loss – I’d argue they’re all the stronger for it.

The poems are divided into a few sections, named after different cuts taken from the body of a cow. Beyond the obvious raw, brutal connotations, this initially suggests the idea of breaking ourselves down into constituent parts; acting as metaphorical “butchers” so we can cut away the viscera and confront the very “meat” of our lives. The device/imagery isn’t used to any real effect, however, and ends up being somewhat superfluous. It’s the one area I felt would have benefitted from a little more depth of exploration.

Still, the immediacy and power of Miller’s words are sure to resonate widely, and I’m glad to have discovered her work.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

The book is powerful and moving and a captivating study of the flavours of grief across marginalized identities. Quick read, definitely not easy and I'm very glad to have had the chance to read a first person perspective to a en masse struggles like BLM and LGBTQ+ activism.

If you like poetry and you like first person narratives of life and love and grief, I'd recommend Butcher.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

"You become the excuse and the excused
the burning building and the fire
expecting to be rescued while left alone"

Butcher by Natasha T. Miller is a collection of poems about loss, grief, and being yourself. Miller provides the emotion felt behind addiction, the loss of her brother, and being in the LGBTQ+ community.

These poems definitely read as spoken poetry, and I wish I could hear them being read aloud. There are very powerful poems in this collection, and the metaphor of a butcher cutting life into different sections creates interesting visuals. There were many poems that worked well and conjured high emotions, but others did not feel as intense. Even though I could not relate to many of these subjects, the poems were still interesting and beautiful.

Again, thank you to NetGalley, Natasha T. Miller, and the publisher for giving be to opportunity to read this collection early.

Moments of brilliance.

Clearly written straight from the heart, this poet has everything I love in her verse: grit and slap-in-the-face moments of clarity and beauty.

We are taken on a journey through thr emotions and experiences life can throw at you: love, loss, anger, isolation but seen through a lens of an intelligent, black, LGBTQ+ advocate.

I would gladly have read double the number of these poems.

I don't feel that the content of the book matched the blurb though!

Thanks to Netgalley 😋 for allowing me to access an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

Poetry is such a difficult genre to review. Yet, it is one of my favourite to pick up. Natasha has written a beautiful string of poems about grief and loss, as well as a Black Queer experience. While I couldn’t relate to some of the poems I think reading other people’s raw experiences in this form is the best way to know them. To see them. To understand them. The themes of love, loss and navigating grief were beautiful.

Butcher is a collection of poems by Natasha T. Miller and discusses the injustice faced by people of colour and the LGBTQIA community, as well as grief and other themes. Some of the poems were powerful and poignant, but with others I struggled to connect. The book conveys a sense of the author's resilience, the importance of family and of sticking together to get through hard times. The author takes a powerful stance in the fight against racism and LGBTQIA discrimination. This was a different type of read for me as I don't often read poetry, but I did enjoy it. I will review this book on my bookstagram (@milliesbooksta) closer to the publication date, and will post my review to Goodreads now.

A collection of slam poems dissecting grief, family, race, and queerness as cuts of meat are carved and placed out for inspection.

Miller’s grief and anger from the murder of her brother is palpable in every page, her fury at the prejudice she receives, and her love for her family. Her poems are as messy and ragged and raw as the emotions she tries to come to term with.

I feel like, presentation wise, a collection of slam poems would have been better served with an audio format, but that makes this book no less powerful. I ended up searching YouTube, and a few of her performances are up there, so go listen to those to hear how her poetry should sound.

In Butcher The author puts herself on the chopping block, offering up different areas of her life as different cuts of meat. The result is a raw and tender collection of poems, in which the poet explores themes of family, grief, race, racism, and sexuality. This collection delves into how we devalue the lives of Black people, especially those who are also othered by their queerness.

The poet comes from a slam poetry background which is evident in the way some of the poems are written; something is perhaps weakened by the translation from spoken word to print. This is something I find with most slam poets, however. Parts of this collection will stay with me for some time.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was such an amazing poetry collection, I loved half of the poems and the other half weren’t my favorite, so I think a 3 star is a pretty good rating for this. I wish that some of them weren’t the author rumbling