Teeth

by Aracelis Girmay

Stunning, highly original poems that celebrate the richness of the author's multicultural tradition, Teeth explores loves, wars, wild hope, defiance, and the spirit of creativity in a daring use of language and syntax. Behind this language one senses a powerful, inventive woman who is not afraid to tackle any subject, including rape, genocide, and love, always sustained by an optimistic voice, assuring us that in the end justice will triumph and love will persevere.

LOVE,
you be the reason why
we swagger & jive,
lift the guitar, & pick up the axe.
when it is i tilt my hat to the side,
wearing colors & perfumes, it's cause, love,
you did it to me. oh,
you do sure turn my tongue to fiddle,
& make the salt taste sweet. man,
i don't need a rooster, or peacock even,
to help me spend my time, nope,
just you, love, right & solid as
a line.

Genres: Poetry

130 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Aracelis Girmay is an American poet. Her poems trace the connections of transformation and loss across cities and bodies.

In 2011 Girmay was awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. A Cave Canem Fellow and an Acentos board member, she led youth and community writing workshops.

Reviews

[Sita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reader, I wept.

Consider the Hands that Write This Letter

after Marina Wilson

Consider the hands
that write this letter.
The left palm pressed flat against the paper,
as it has done before, over my heart,
in peace or reverence
to the sea or some beautiful thing
I saw once, felt once: snow falling
like rice flung from the giants’ wedding,
or the strangest birds. & consider, then,
the right hand, & how it is a fist,
within which a sharpened utensil,
similar to the way I’ve held a spade,
match to the wick, the horse’s reins,
loping, the very fists
I’ve seen from the roads to Limay & Estelí.
For years, I have come to sit this way:
one hand open, one hand closed,
like a farmer who puts down seeds & gathers up
the food that comes from that farming.
Or, yes, it is like the way I’ve danced
with my left hand opened around a shoulder
& my right hand closed inside
of another hand. & how
I pray, I pray for this
to be my way: sweet
work alluded to in the body’s position
to its paper:
left hand, right hand
like an open eye, an eye closed:
one hand flat against the trapdoor,
the other hand knocking, knocking.

[Tara Betts]

I've heard Aracelis read quite a few of these poems, read quite a few of them to my boyfriend when we're driving in the car together, and now I've read it cover-to-cover today. I am completely in love with the opening poem "Arroz Poetica," "Ode to the Watermelon," the title poem, "For Estefani Lora, Third Grade, Who Made Me a Card," the pair of poems for 'Cyclops Mary' and "Here." There are not many debut poetry collections that I encounter that have more than four or five poems that fascinate me, but these are the ones that tug at me in the most immediate ways. Yet there are so many more that reflect the multiple experiences of Ms. Girmay, who claims Puerto Rican, African American and Eritrean cultures as her poetic roots. There are political poems about rape as a weapon of war, and a bilingual ode to the letter "B," and tracing back a great-grandfather making his way to the United States. After I read the last poem, I just felt like dreaming and writing and seeing images unfold in my head and thinking that politics can still move us to be human, loving and civilized unlike the ways these words are flippantly thrown around. There's also a moving introduction by poet Martin Espada.

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audacious, fierce poetry, but now five years after I first read it I can see that some of the work leans too much on sentiment & romanticism, but having said that it is done very unselfconsciously. 'Litany' and 'Here' are standouts poems.

[sorel · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is a book of poems that are not afraid
to love and i will always need to keep it nearby.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

favorites:

“Here”
“The Piano”
“Teeth”
“Cyclops Mary” & “Cyclops Mary on the Avenue, A Monologue”
“For Etsefani Lora, Third Grade, Who Made Me A Card”

[Arnie Kahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! This is a really different book of poetry. Some of the poems are funny, some cute, some angry, some clever, and some I don't understand. I enjoy reading them out loud. The poems are from such different perspectives I need to pause, reread, try another, smile, give up, get angry at Bush and Iraq, laugh, nod in agreement, laugh out loud. I'm glad I found it at the thrift store. I got much more than my $.75 worth.

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Poetry Foundation says that Aracelis Girmay's work traces "the connections of transformation and loss across cities and bodies." And that much is true in Teeth. I bought myself a copy, thinking I would donate it once I was done. I will not be doing that. Girmay's voice is one of conviction, pointedness, and such insurmountable love. Hers is a voice that the world (and I) desperately need.

Teeth follows the poet's multiethnic background, taking the reader all over the map. Figuratively, through the poems, and literally, in the book's final piece, "Epistolary Poem after Finding a Schoolbook Map." In the truest sense, this book is a place book, but more than this, it is a people book and a feeling book--and each of these is centered firmly on family.

What Girmay most excels at--or at least what gripped me most--is her stunning use of lists to communicate ideas. She does not tell the reader how to feel; she elicits the emotion as candidly and subtly and naturally as possible. Her work is so effective and her emotional technique so undetected that the reader leaves each poem believing he himself came up with the feeling all on his own. This is the goal of any half-serious poet: to lay out the imagery. The reader will interpret and make his own meaning, which will almost always match or rhyme with the meaning intended by a good poet. Girmay is a good poet.

Inhumanities, traditions, wars, horrors, loss, and discrimination are articulated so compellingly throughout Teeth that I could not help but feel the seams of my heart ripped open. But what is so striking about the book is that Girmay always returns to hope and to love. The careful reader returns here too, time and time again, rhythmically, like a lull: Here, love. Here, love. Here.

Indeed, the final poem of the first section, "Here," is my favorite work of the book, and one of many poems that makes this volume worth returning to: A poem that opens with,

Say, Look, this is your saddest thing. That's all.
Your first & only saddest thing. This
is the hole that never closed.

and ends with,

Here is the miracle.
Here are your dresses & blue jeans. Here are your days,
days, days, their black & blue. Here are your bruises,
your back & forth. Here is the crow that circles your heart.
Here are your seesaw years. Here
are all the things you prayed for.

[victoria marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many things are true at once.
—Elizabeth Alexander

this is a reread, as ordered her third book finally plus her second (this & the second were recently heartbreakingly damaged beyond repair, but imagine my surprise when I open this tonight in my quest to read more poetry in 2025, & there’s a personal inscription that’s so lovely to a Jim (surprised this was given away with those touching words!) + her signature!!) & I just need to echo Girmay’s words for another writer that are echoed in the Foreword by Martín Espada for Girmay & this first poetry collection of hers (very meta I know! ;)

“I love this book so much it sounds like I’m lying.”

&, 1000000000%, SAME.

- - - - - - -

“Ode to the Watermelon” https://www.fishousepoems.org/ode-to-...

“Consider the Hands that Write this Letter” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem...

-

FIEL

Love me, love me with two hands & no rearview.

page 92

[Edward Moreta]

If I had to choose 5 poems to submit for the “best poem of all time” category, Arroz Poética would be one of them. And it would be top 3. It blows me away every time. It’s the first poem in the collection and like.. I can’t believe Aracelis Girmay had to.. keep writing the book after that? And delivered even more incredible poems in the process/collection. Like.. I woulda simply retired. Just greatness. and it’s from 2007.. has aged like fine wine.

[Gaby · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is everything!
I started reading it because of the Estefani Lora poem, which is my favorite poem by Aracelis. But this collection in its entirety is beautiful and real and amazing. There is so much to love about it.

[jane bro · Rating 3 out of 5]

recommended by homie rishona

[Jennifer Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Girmay's poems are varied and aware, wandering into different territories and balancing smoothly between language-play and observation. In many of them, there's such power that a reader is hard-pressed to not stop, consider, and reread the same poem once again--not because of a lack of clarity, but because there's a drive to re-experience it, and gain some more drops of meaning and emotion. It's true that not every poem lives up to this description--a few are oversoaked in description or expansion--but most of the poems here will be well worth the time for poetry lovers who want their poetry to come with an awareness of the world, and not only self-awareness.

All told, I truly enjoyed this one, and have to recommend it on to anyone who enjoys dipping into contemporary poetry; it's a lovely, thoughtful read, with much to appreciate and consider.

[Laurel Perez · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fierce collection that does not shy away from genocide, rape, love, poetry that avoids the sentimental, and breaks the content wide open. I have a feeling the images, the propelling momentum of this collection will not soon leave me.

[Luke Hillier · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Kingdom Animalia about a year ago and had really high hopes for this collection, its predecessor. Although it wasn't as strong or spellbinding as that book (and it'd be a bit shocking if it was, to be honest), I still found these to be really stunning as well. A key difference, to me, was that Kingdom Animalia seemed to all be speaking from the same place and all of the poems were echoing off of each other, whereas this felt a lot more disjointed. In some ways, this actually appeared intentional, a reflection of Girmay's familial geographic diversity (of course best illustrated in the stunning closing poem) and in that vein it works well. At other points, however, it felt like too much a shift to go from exploring war crimes to childhood memories; that isn't to say the transition shouldn't be made, but that it felt a bit jerky for me. With that said, she's certainly adept at both ends of the spectrum. Her more politicized, wide-angle poems express a seething rage and heartbreak of course best embodied by "Arroz Poetica" while her smaller-scale, personal pieces like "Santa Ana of Grocery Carts" carry a warmth and intimacy and vulnerability that's really engaging. Girmay has an expert intuition for rhythm, syntax, and repetition, the latter of which is probably most impressive of all considering its prevalence here and how stale or annoying that would be in the hands of most poets.

"Arroz Poetica" is the undeniable stand-out; I had to set the book down and walk around a bit after finishing it. "Then Sing," "Here," "Scent: Love Poem for the Pilón," and "Epistolary Dream Poem after Finding a Schoolbook Map" were my other top favorites with quite a few more not far behind them.

[kavreb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some truly striking poems here, and then some where I just went, what. Seems to suffer from the same malady most of these author collections do - the need to fill a whole book undermines the strength of the individual poems and the whole ends up feeling somewhat diluted. The mass of it also discourages spending enough time on any single poem, even further undermining their strength, especially with such complex poems as Girmay is in the habit of penning; or, I guess, you could - and read no more than a book or two a year.

It also occasionally feels like using other people's pain for an academic exercise, but then again I do think I prefer that over a book filled with the personal yearnings of somebody who can't see further than their navel, unless they can use it to even further demonstrate the depth of their own supposed suffering. Girmay has a few more personal poems, but even more those (or at least ones that count) that do try to give representative voice to a greater suffering. Some powerful stuff there then, suffice to say. Just could use some cutting, perhaps.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty much anytime you ask poets about the poetry they love, you hear Aracelis Girmay come up pretty fast. These are deeply rooted poems, grounded in particular times and spaces, with such tangible, material details--and yet so many of them could have been written right now, today, in this moment in time. What stood out to me the most was that all these poems feel like poems of resistance, poems of forward momentum in any circumstance, poems of the world might say no but I'll find my way to yes, just you wait and see.

My favorite was "Ode to the Watermelon", an old poem about Palestine that could just as surely be a today poem about Palestine. Oh how the river flows, yet stays the same.

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly stunning. The truth and creativity and fierceness are suffused with such compassion and joy. This is the closest to sentimental poetry I could ever get. I adored Arroz Poetica, Ode to the Watermelon, Consider the Hands that Write this Letter, Santa Ana of Grocery Carts... honestly and several more.

[Nat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite having many poems concerned with pain, sorrow, and trauma, the overwhelming feeling I got from this poetry collection was compassion, affection, and joy. The opening poem, Arroz Poetica was I think my favorite and the most powerful of them all.

[Diana Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much wisdom and ugh my heart.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorite poem: In the cane fields (part III, p. 60.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lyrical and moving, many I would return to and study for my own work. Beautiful and inspiring.

[Hafsa | حفصہ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Day 2 of the #SealeyChallenge 2025

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some seriously wonderful poems in this collection.

[Lisha Adela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aracelis' work is meant to be read out loud. Indeed I did have the pleasure of hearing her read as one of the featured poets in Tempe, AZ National Poetry Month series. She is a dynamic reader and when later I read her poems, I could still hear her voice wrap around the words. Her use of language is singular and she uses "&" instead of the word "and" and somehow that works. Normally I would find that distracting.
"Someday you have to accept your death if you expect to raise up from this land. Got to lay down long enough to let the whole world take you."
Aracelis' multi-culturalism is such an asset as you read poems from all over the world in her body, her use of language and in acute observation.

[Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ara writes the way she talks: the use of repetition, the swirling of favorite words around the mouth like a Jolly Rancher. A good good book from a good good poet. Evocative of Larry Levis, unapologetically political, unflinching images that are not afraid to meander. Particular favorites: "The Piano," "Arroz Poetica," the Cyclops Mary cycle. What every poet should wanna be when they grow up.

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tiny bit disappointing to me, personally, after the mind-blowing Kingdom Animalia collection, but I found that I was still in love with this poet's fierce voice by the time I finished the book.

And the opening poem - Arroz Poetica - just fantastic.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

The rhythms and sounds of these poems seem to match up with something within me - despite the fact that some of Girmay's topics are foreign to me, I feel a link of understanding. Especially like "Conjugation," "Consider the Hands That Write This Letter," "The Dog," and "Santa Ana of Grocery Carts."

[Alessandra Simmons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Its good to keep a copy of this book nearby.

[Taije Silverman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love, love.

[Niel Rosenthalis · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I do not know what happens to our gone....but tell me a story that did not begin with love."