Kindest Regards, Nothing Is Ok

~Nothing is Okay~
By Rachel Wiley
Amazon ~ Powell's

Nothing is Okay is the second full-length poetry collection by Rachel Wiley, whose work simultaneously deconstructs the lies that we were taught about our bodies and our beings, and builds new ways of viewing ourselves. As she delves into queerness, feminism, fatness, dating, and race, Wiley molds these topics into a punching critique of culture and a celebration of self. A fat positive activist, Wiley's work soars and challenges the bounds of bodies and hearts, and the ways we carry them.


I've never been one for poetry, least of all when I'm forced to analyze it for class. I swear, Robert Frost will be the end of me. But after seeing a powerful video (which ended up being one of the poems in this book) with the author 'joking' about her regular healthcare treatment, I knew I had to check out her stuff. She also has another book, The Fat Joke out, but since my library doesn't have that one digitally yet, I went with what they do have.

First off, I want to highlight an important message for my fellow ebook readers:

A Note on Poetry E-Books
You are reading a poetry e-book, which, based on the settings of your device, can result in significant changes to the original formatting as intended by the author and publisher. For the best experience reading this book, please set your device so that the following line fits entirely on one line on your screen.
Get dressed up like it’s prom night and your whole young glamourous life

I greatly appreciated this message for the book, however, considering how kindle books like to automatically open on page 1, instead of on the cover, perhaps it would have been best not to have this tucked way back before the table of contents and even the title page. Still, thank you for thinking of us e-readers.

I've always had a bit of a stigma against poetry, again brought on by high school, but after reading On the Come Up, and, to some extent, Pride, I think my issue is more with reading poetry instead of hearing poetry. Upon realizing this, I immediately went to YouTube and began searching for the poems from this book, and lo and behold I found some, maybe a third of the book! I've included the playlist below. It was especially helpful with "Mixed Girl" and "A Plague Of Doubts", which format themselves like lists. Not all of the poems are exactly like they're printed in the book, but it was helpful and more impactful hearing the author speak her words in the rhythm she intended.

You learn a lot about the author through her poems, like how she's mixed race, queer, feminist, fat, and (at times) hilarious. I especially loved her "Rejection" poems which featured lines like,

Dear MrTongueRing69,
Thank you for your submission, however we were unable to read it as our office is not currently equipped with a way-back machine to travel to an era when your screen name was clever and probably somewhat alluring.

But there's a lot of heartbreak in here, too, dealing with loves gone, loneliness, trauma, rape, depression, loss (a word of warning that the "Letter to My Cat" video has a much happier ending than that in the book), injustice, doubt, regret, and fury. Like in the poem about her niece playing like a lion, like a king, only for this to happen:

Now my niece is 6 and skipping pizza day because she
all of a sudden worried
if she’s thin enough to be a queen
or just pretty enough to be someone’s trophy.
The tallest girl in her class stoops
from being told to make herself smaller
smiles mouth closed to hide missing teeth,
not to show imperfection
swallows the right answers in class, not to look too smart.
She is being tamed for the poachers and I am undone.
I see you, Patriarchy.

Because, sometimes, nothing is okay. Sometimes you don't feel better after crying it out. Sometimes you just have to stew in your feelings until a new feeling takes the fore. And, other times, nothing is okay. Sometimes nothing is better than something if something is hurtful.

This book made me cry. It made me laugh sometimes, too, but it made me cry. From just reading the words on the page, and then also listening to the author on stage sounding like her voice was breaking, it made me break a couple times, too.

Overall, I don't know what I was expecting to get out of this book, or what I did end up getting out of this book, but I hope some of it will stick with me. I highly recommend checking out some of her videos below to get a taste of her, and checking out her book if you enjoy it or if it speaks to you. I'll definitely be keeping her on my radar and recommending more of her work to be picked up by my library.