Review: Tell Me About Me
Tell Me About Me by Marc PredkaMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
As personal as they are powerful, Predka unleashes a torrent of emotional punches in this collection of poems. They evoke visceral, even gut-clenching, moments of pain in a way that can make many readers feel seen by words they may have never strung together but feel deep in the bones. That's one of the most poignant elements of Predka's work; how his poems are corporeal leaving imprints in the mind and on the body. It makes a certain amount of sense given how much of the works are about bodies--being in one's body, escaping one's body, harming one's body, witnessing changing one's body, connecting or missing another's body, and how the mind and body may connect or disconnect. On that point, many poems explore mental health in bold or nuanced ways--a theme that Predka had taken up in a recent album as the hip-hop artist, The Traemarc (Blood Meridian, 2019). Like any good collection, so many lines give way to new connections that make this anthology worth regular re-reading and reconsideration. It's funny that at one point in reading, I wanted more--a better sense of Predka with a bio, an explanation of the poems, hell--even a table of contents to let me see all the works together in some collective way. But then, I reread the title and none of that is needed--one just needs to open up to any page and you will know more than you could ever imagine about another human being.
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