Sarah O'Connor

I received this book from The Next Best Book Club in exchange for an honest review.

“when all this is over we’ll throw a party

when all this is over we’ll have a laugh

when all this is over we’ll pretend we aren’t traumatized forever”

– how we survived a pandemic (Marie 104)

songs we used to dance to is a beautiful and aching poetry collection. Inspired largely by the pandemic (as is obvious from the poem I quoted) Marie’s collection covers such a wide array of emotions. From grief to sadness, to claustrophobia to the feeling of haunting and being haunted, of just existing during a historical moment not really know what else there is to do. It isn’t just about the pandemic of course, there are poems about the grief of relationships endings, about memories and nostalgia, of yearning for something that once was. songs we used to dance to is a wonderful collection that perfectly shows the pandemic ennui so many of us have been feeling since 2020.

Publication: March 31st 2022
Publisher: Goliad Media Group
Pages: 121 pages (PDF)
Source: The Next Best Book Club (Thanks Lori!)
Genre: Non-Fiction, Poetry, Pandemic
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤⛤
Summary:

the world is on fire but everything is fine. you’re invited to a party. there will be dancing. a poet falls in love with you. we want this to last forever. somewhere hidden, a garden blooms. a revolution overdue. illness and isolation. the misery of hope. the comfort of madness. a forest of contradictions. you’re not sure what’s real anymore. a ghost has gone missing. we haunt this place now. nothing will ever be the same.