Content Warning: Everything

Reviews

“A puzzle wrapped in beautiful language, raising questions of identity and loyalty that are as unanswerable as they are important.” —The New York Times Book Review

“A triumph of selfhood that painstakingly journeys between belief and becoming. Holding tenderness and rage in one breath, the Nigerian-born nonbinary author excavates trauma, divorce and loss without restraint.” —New York Times

“To enter Emezi’s world, you not only need to decolonize your mind, but also free yourself from patriarchal and binary ways of viewing the world . . . Reading Emezi’s unfolding integration of fictional forms and modes of thinking—spiritual, analytical, historical, cultural, clinical—you feel like you are witnessing a talented and emotionally astute writer finding [their] voice(s).” —Guernica

“Emezi builds identity and family from chosen elements in these poems, describing the commonness of growing into divinity with wit, candor, and clarity.” —New York Public Library, Best Books of 2022

“Novelist and memoirist Akwaeke Emezi’s debut poetry collection, Content Warning: Everything, centers a bold and spiritfirst perspective on the world. Emezi’s poems center the irreducible essence of the self that survives, morphs, and above all, desires.” —Electric Lit, Favorite Poetry Collections of 2022

“A work of elegant musicality and ingenuity [that draws] the reader into a world of memories, talismans, photographs, spirits, and intimacies.” —Zora

“In their poetry debut, Content Warning: Everything, eye-catching novelist Akwaeke Emezi envisions a self that can’t be bent or broken.” —Library Journal, The Books of 2022

“These poems urgently communicate a relatable search for identity and safety and will resonate with a wide range of readers wanting to undertake that search, too. Especially important in presenting another dimension of this gifted writer.” —Library Journal

“From searing inquisitions of the nature of guilt and sin to radical reimaginings of biblical figures, Emezi operates with the ease of a seasoned poet throughout this visionary book.” —BookPage

“Moments of incomparable characterization stand out, like the ‘velvet child upholstered in incoherent rage,’ often contrasting with the simple pleasures of Emezi’s Igbo culture:’the wet fibers from a ripe palm fruit / flat stones cracking the nut inside.’ Emezi’s lyrics radiate raw vulnerability in their exploration of themes of abuse, trauma, mental wellness, and sexuality.” —Booklist

“Emezi’s debut poetry collection focuses on themes of belonging and the self. Taking inspiration from the divine and the mundane, they write “from a spiritfirst perspective.” Swinging from home to homesickness, abuse to survival, grief to rage, and desire to surrender, the poems exemplify the stark power of Emezi’s writing.” —Autostraddle

“Content Warning: Everything deserves its name. Between the first and last pages, my mind became a thunderstorm of questions. What is time? What is being? What is life? What is death, to a god? Each poem presents an experience like lightning. Look: love. Here, pain. See where they connect. At the center of the thunderstorm is stillness. There, clarity is born. If you feel confused and a little unsteady then, congratulations, you’re ready to read Akwaeke Emezi.” —Autostraddle

“Outrageously spiritual yet relentlessly self-exposed, the poems recycle biblical materials to articulate deep-seated familial wounds with scarcely an ounce of self‑pity. Alternative realities generate raw self-portraits, giving voice to harrowing experiences of domestic and sexual violence. Emezi has combined Maya Angelou’s passion and Sylvia Plath’s devastating self-inquisition to create an edgy music that frightens and astonishes.” —Guardian

“Moments of incomparable characterization stand out, like the ‘velvet child upholstered in incoherent rage,’ often contrasting with the simple pleasures of Emezi’s Igbo culture: ‘the wet fibers from a ripe palm fruit / flat stones cracking the nut inside.’ Emezi’s lyrics radiate raw vulnerability in their exploration of themes of abuse, trauma, mental wellness, and sexuality.” —Booklist Publications, American Library Association

“Each poem is stunning, and often feels uproarious immediately upon its completion, demanding another read, another look, a step or two back or to the side, to second guess, question, and feel.” —North of Oxford

“Emezi’s worldbuilding is best expressed when senses collide, as when we observe how ‘mary / auntie sighs and a flock of sparrows crashes against my ear’ or experience the visceral sensation of a voice, as ‘ox bones thrown against the walls / heavy bamboo whistling on / tender calves.’” —Harriet Books, Poetry Foundation

“Spirit, source, sanctuary.”—Ms. Magazine

“Akwaeke Emezi is an award-winning author making a big splash in poetry with this collection. Leading with the spirit, these poems celebrate the parts of ourselves that we cannot kill or reduce. Surrender, abuse, survival, and homesickness are all themes in play in these poems that really do need every content warning imaginable.” —Book Riot

“In their bold debut poetry collection, Akwaeke Emezi—award-winning author of Freshwater, PET, The Death of Vivek Oji, and Dear Senthuran—imagines a new depth of belonging. Crafted of both divine and earthly materials, these poems travel from home to homesickness, tracing desire to surrender and abuse to survival, while mapping out a chosen family that includes the son of god, mary auntie, and magdalene with the chestnut eyes. Written from a spiritfirst perspective and celebrating the essence of self that is impossible to drown, kill, or reduce, Content Warning: Everything distills the radiant power and epic grief of a mischievous and wanting young deity, embodied.” —WRAL

“Akwaeke Emezi continues to astound with their prolific multi-genre, multidisciplinary work . . . .” —Shondaland

“In Emezi’s powerful debut poetry collection, the prolific writer blasts wide open the boundaries of memoir and fantasy. A parallel biblical family becomes a place of safety and belonging; exchanges of power are scrutinised through the lens of trauma; and Emezi’s navigation of survival and renewal is by turns playful and devastating.”—Financial Times

“There’s such emotive and subtle resonance in Emezi’s exasperated yet lively tone, disrupting the male gaze. There’s gratefulness to themselves—not in an egocentric way, but in a way that implicitly insists they exist, have survived, and now thrive because they can be comfortable in their skin, because they can and will and must.”—Colorado Review