Praise for Naming the Roses

“‘Name Me,’ the opener of this long-awaited collection, is a tour de force, it storms in with its chilling juxtaposition of romance and violence in the strong, unapologetic voice of a woman. Kim Noriega is masterful at hitting the right tone with her uncompromising stark naming of male-on-female brutality, using a detailed storyteller’s specificity that reaches effortlessly into collective experience. She does not shrink from beauty either, a subtle beauty, infused with a sense of familiarity that makes her words feel like home. Home, from the womb to the wedding, abuse, suicides, silences, apples, birthdays, heirlooms, the presence of green, waterfalls, horses, tastes, sensual detail, all of the roses, ‘that magical / black rain, / ecstasy, / a flurry of starlings.’

“I only wish I could inhabit the unashamed, unpitying, beautiful, warm, defiant spirit of this book that rises off it like steam.” —Sarah Luczaj, Ph.D.

“Among the roses that Kim Noriega names, in her first full-length collection of poems, are the bruises that bloom from sexual violence, and the self that blossoms in the aftermath of the effort to love and love again. What strikes me, in so many of these poems, is the speaker’s tenderness toward herself and the hurt people who have hurt her, even as she speaks unflinchingly of addiction, dysfunction, and abuse, even as she speaks herself into radiance.” —Cecilia Woloch

“Thank you for writing Name Me …

It is a powerful and courageous book. I have passed it on to Sulaiman Nuriddin, Director of Men’s Education. He will use it, poems from it, to bring women’s reality into the room while he’s working with men. In Peace, Shelley” —Shelley Serdahely, Executive Director, Men Stopping Violence

“These are brave poems that tell us the stories that live underneath the surface of our lives. They show us the vulnerability in a young girl’s world: ‘What does anyone know of the open palm/ her small world rests upon?’; the danger in that world: ‘Your hand at the small of my back / your teeth at my throat’; how it is shattered: ‘he moves his fingers/ to your throat / …whispers: / If I squeeze a little harder’; and how it is healed: ‘It was you, beloved, / who taught the trees / my name.’ These are poems that matter.” —Ellen Bass

“As the title, Name Me, suggests, Kim Noriega’s superb collection of poems is a journey of self-discovery, capturing high-voltage moments of anguish, abuse, and tenderness, beginning with family then lovers. This is hard-core poetry for hard-core life, but with nothing crude about it—just stunning clarity.” —Jeffrey Greene

Reviews

Modern Confessional, “Read This,” May 21, 2010, Name Me reviewed by Collin Kelley

Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal, Issue 23, 2010, Name Me reviewed by Lissa Kiernan, Poetry Editor