A Bustle Best Poetry Collection of 2018
“For Darst, to remember is to claim ownership of one’s pain and, by extension, one’s humanity.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[Thousands] allows the reader to feel both intimately involved as an observer, but also, somehow, present. . . . This is a collection in which all readers will recognize something, if in nothing else then in the humanity of the poet herself.”
—The Paris Review
“Darst’s intimacy here is masterful: whether it is love, lust, pregnancy, or words.”
—The Millions
“[Thousands] has an intimacy about it that speaks to the tenderness inside the reader. . . . Don’t be surprised if there’s a catch in your throat when you read."
—Signature Reads
“As they carve their way through this markedly contemporary landscape, Darst’s readers will likely have trouble separating the dreams, desires, and fears the speaker expresses from their own—the text of these poems is everything you might catch yourself thinking, and everything you might hope someone else could share with you.”
—The Arkansas International
“I have Lightsey Darst’s amazing and ecstatic meditation on being a person in the world, I have these poems to guide me, I have her bravery and wild mind, I have her spells and wisdom, I have these incredible poems to carry with me wherever I go.”
—Matthew Dickman
“In Thousands, Darst takes longing and ecstasy and melancholy and doubt back from the patriarchy to write toward the canon of the future.”
—Lynn Melnick
“Thousands is an unabashed and compelling collection of poetry. . . . The poems are unafraid to remark upon the world as it is, to touch on areas of womanhood that are often overlooked, including sex and yearning and the interior of a marriage falling apart.”
—The Corresponder
“Simultaneously vulnerable and self-assured, Darst’s verse will have you clamoring for everything she’s ever written.”
—Bustle
