Read as an ARC received as a benefit from a Patreon contributor.

In her book, Destinations, poet Destiny O. Birdsong gathered a large collection of her writing that both captures and inflicts pain. Birdsong's voice tells readers of the pain of living as a second class citizen in America which tries so hard to deny its racism, sexism, and homophobia Her poems go beyond expressing pain, they express anguish and deep wounds which can heal only as scars. It is clear in her poetry that we are getting a glimpse of her soul, of her inner being, of the forces within her that govern how she lives her life.
Her pain is not hers alone, however; it is the pain of all marginalized people. It is also pain that is greatly magnified when the margins apply simultaneously to race and gender and sexuality, all of which apply to Birdsong. For her, the pain and feeling of exclusion are quite frequently become expressed as anger in these poems, just as it does in the everyday world. One of those angry poems, "Elegy for the Man on Highway 52," seemed more than angry, it seemed violent. Yet, in her soul, Birdsong also holds values that hold hope as in the poem "i too sing america."
i too sing america
but mostly//when its convenient
when i am abroad// i fucking love
the constitution//the gall of the forefathers....."
The hope is there, but is difficult to retrieve for her, "...mostly//whenits convenient when i am abroad...."
But while hope and belief do reside in the poet, they do are not the guiding factor of the book. Pain amd anger dominate the work.
The tone of the book seemed to lighten-up in its latter pages, but never do we get lyrical, happy, love-filled poetry, poetry that will make a reader's heart sing or make him want to quote the poems.
The book's title, Negotiations, properly defines the thrust of the book, however, in that so much that Birdsong writes about is about accommodation, compromise, and even surrender. It is perhaps best summarized in her poem "My rapist once said he didn't need anything from me;" (punctuation, grammar, lack of capital letters in the title all taken from the poem as it is written).
In this collection, the poem "the way i listen to you read poems." also summarizes much of the rest of the book's content. This poem is the one I found the most interesting in the entire collection.
For a Black, female, lesbian writer, there is much pain to discuss, many hurts to get over, many hopes that will go unrealized, yet a book that provides such a drumbeat of anguish, pain, and anger is a challenging work to read. ( )