“You did not call me on your way to ash
as angst unbuttoned from the terrified
fist your heart had become, swung loose, released.
Today is Tuesday – but no lunch is served.
You can’t escape woe’s blacked out page because
my memory’s the urn I’ll store you in.” – 4.5/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: seagulls, hula girls, Tuesdays, pain, bridges, and… grief.

With a sprinkling of dark humor and a full measure of compassion, “Felones de Se: Poems about Suicide” is surprising, suffused with eerie details, quirky, and inspired by actual suicides, one of them a blood relative.

I’m not a huge poetry reader, but I found myself reading this from front-to-back a few times! This was a very interesting read, and I don’t think I’ve read a book like this before.
I was curious about what the title meant, so I did some research, and I found out that the expression “felones de se” was used in medieval English law to refer to people who committed suicide – “felones” comes from “felony”, and “de se” means “of oneself”. It seems like in the old English law, suicide was considered a felony, and the crown would confiscate the property of the deceased’s family. I found this very curious!
What I found so interesting about these books is that the author wrote a poem about her cousin, but she also worte poems about other real suicides. And she added small notes at the bottom to give the reader some context of what happened in each one. And of course, I did some research of my own! I found the Saudi Arabia sisters’ suicide particularly interesting and sad.
It’s hard to pick a favorite – it definitely feels like Joseph LoSchiavo’s poem felt more personal (for obvious reasons), but there were many other poems with interesting backstories.
As a side note, I loved the illustrations! I think it really complemented the book in a beautiful way.
Definitely worth picking it up if you like reading poetry.