Review of it was never going to be okay by jaye simpson
jaye simpson, it was never going to be okay
Nightwood Editions, 2020. $18.95 CAD.
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In jaye simpson’s debut poetry collection it was never going to be okay, the poems weave together to examine the beauty within grief and the pain within love, which demonstrate simpson’s poetic skill and attention to detail. it was never going to be okay is an exploration of the body on multiple levels: the physical body and the pain and pleasure it endures, the body in how it links to the land and to history, and finally the collection of poems as a complex body of their own. simpson is playful with form, often using white space to lengthen the moment or a feeling. Their concrete poems are effective in how they challenge the reader and make them think differently. These poems are felt within the body and demonstrate an inherent level of discomfort and strength.
In the first poem in the collection, “sea glass,” simpson writes: “call me sea glass / because i once was sharp / broken tossed in / tumultuous tides” (11). The speaker feels that others only accept their flaws once they’ve softened into something malleable, easier to control. People in their life expect them to behave a certain way and conform to a heteronormative, white settler society, but the speaker pushes back. Whether glass, bone, teeth, or blades, this image of weapons as self-defence is reoccurring throughout the collection. Although the speaker does not want to harm, the violence they have endured has left them with no choice. simpson uses these different weapons to discuss the pain of intergenerational trauma, racism, and transphobia. Often heartbreaking, the sharpness from the dangerous objects used throughout is also empowering. These poems are about self-preservation and endurance. There’s a movement from the start of the collection to the end, showing an attention to self-care and self-love.
The collection is split into four sections. Although they are only labeled with a number, each section seems to be divided by a theme: pain, memory, desire, and hope. The first section delves into the memories of a child moving from foster home to foster home. There is so much grief within these poems, and simpson eloquently demonstrates how cruelty can come in the form of the smallest words:
i am five
my sisters are saying boy
i do not know what the word means but
i am bruised into knowing it: the blunt b,
the hollowness of the o, the blade of the y
oh how they struck (17)
The speaker is offered moments of solace, like the escape into literature. They show how far a small kindness from one person can go, especially in comparison to the cruelty of others:
except in father’s favourite room, where i am free to just be, reading while the
piano mournfully sings mozart and i am under it hiding from my siblings.
crying as peter says, stay here you are safe here (18)
Most of the section envelops the reader in grief through the more lyrical poems. However, simpson also includes concrete poems that push boundaries, forcing the reader to pause and sit with the message a little longer. They challenge the structure that caused them pain in the first place. As seen in the poem “00088614,” simpson repeats the numbers over and over again to address the trauma of just being a number. Hidden within the numbers is a message spread out like a glimmer of rebellion: “why/ didn’t / you / say/ my / name?” (26-27).
Although there is overlap between the sections, there is movement for the speaker between the divisions. In the second section, many of the poems reflect on memory and how it can change over time. The speaker turns moments from their past around in their hands like dough, shaping it into something new, and looking at instances from a different angle:
hoped to be whatever you wanted
didn’t listen when i wasn’t what you were looking for
& blamed you for it.
wrong of me to ask you to want me // still i faulted you
the sapphic poets didn’t teach
how to be accountable
when yearning (34)
This section starts to build a map for unlearning trauma both from their childhood and from previous generations. One of the strongest poems in this section is “head & heart & hands & health (a poem in four parts).” It reads almost like a short story, as it’s driven by action and concrete details of the threat of situations in the small town the speaker escaped. The poem closes up the second section with the line “i better not fucking die here” (54).
As the poems move towards the exploration of sex, desire, and all that goes with it, simpson’s dry humour sneaks in. Both of the poems “godzilla” and “red” made me laugh out loud, displaying the hilarity that often goes along with sex. simpson is skilled at revealing how complex desire can be: whether it’s the lust to be a mother, the experience of toxic male desire, the shaming from others for being a sexual being, or the pain that comes with being fetishized or rejected. In multiple poems, simpson invokes Greek mythology:
i feel like a collision
of grecian warnings:
to want is deserving
of punishment enough (64)
Despite these warnings, simpson illustrates how lust and heartbreak can be worth the risk. This desire for love could turn any skeptic into a romantic. The speaker wants to be loved and dreams of nurturing others. They offer glimpses of their hope for the future:
many tomorrows from now i pray
my bed full of babies
warm & chubby
are held in arms
that understand there are NDN babies
who will want me
as much as i want them (57)
The final section of the collection offers healing, as if the pages of the book are exploring therapy along with the speaker. The speaker is physically expunging grief, as hope and healing are enmeshed with pain. The vulnerability in simpson’s poetry breaks down how healing is an ongoing process, and how part of it is learning to trust and love the body, even the scars. In one of the most poignant passages from the collection in “waterways,” the speaker embraces their Indigeneity:
sometimes i use my body as a map
trace the migration of my kin:
in the crook of my elbow is st. ambroise,
where the ducharme siblings burst from soil
& soft birch shoreline.
my shoulder is where regina has dug deep, having fled dauphin years prior (92)
This care and attention to detail illustrates the complexity of grief and hope. The overlaps in themes across different sections bring together a cohesion in the collection.
One of my favourite aspects of it was never going to be okay was simpson’s references to pop culture. Many of the poems are a reflection or a response to songs from Lana Del Rey, Amy Winehouse, or Florence and the Machine – all musicians who are queer icons. Not only does it make the poems feel current and contemporary, but it also offers a soundtrack for the collection. Like simpson’s moments of humour slipping into various poems, these songs are dropped in like gifts and add a second layer to the poems for those familiar with the music. I had Amy Winehouse’s “Tears Dry on Their Own” on repeat after reading it was never going to be okay.
Atmospheric and evocative, it was never going to be okay is a poetry collection readers will want to return to again and again. Each time I read it through, I was startled by moments of beauty and insight I hadn’t noticed the time before. jaye simpson is a force to be reckoned with, and I look forward to reading what they write next.
Michaela Stephen (she/her) is a writer based in Windsor, ON, where she works at Biblioasis. She has been published or has work forthcoming in CV2, This Magazine, and antilang, among others. She lives with her cat, Banana Loaf.