Aphrodite Made Me Do It

By Trista Mateer

Bestselling and award-winning author Trista Mateer takes an imaginative approach to self-care in this new poetry and prose collection, Aphrodite Made Me Do It. In this empowering retelling, she uses the mythology of the goddess to weave a common thread through the past and present. By the end of this book, Aphrodite make you believe in the possibility of your own healing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Central Avenue Publishing
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781771681759

Trista Mateer

Trista Mateer is a poet from outside of Baltimore. Known for her eponymous blog, she is also the author of four full length collections of poetry, and won the Goodreads Choice Award in 2015 with The Dogs I Have Kissed. She is currently working as a freelance editor but still manages to spend most of her time Googling cheap air fare and writing poetry about things that don't matter anymore.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

I watched my mother lie for love

when it stomped through the house and

put its fists through our walls.

I watched her bleed for it and

lie more.

I told myself I’d never wear thin for it.

I’d never break for it.

And then I did.

I was human.

Small and predictable.

Bad love wanted a sacrifice,

so I made myself one.

I drank it straight from the tap,

wiped my mouth on my palms,

picked up a pen,

and called myself a poet.

The thing about embracing your own chaos

is that it never becomes clear

when you need to

stop.

I didn’t forget how to fight for myself.

I forgot that I could.

THE DREAM GOES LIKE THIS

I’m on the verge of sleep, and then I’m not. I’m standing in a concrete room and my whole body feels like it’s vibrating. A neon sign blinks on somewhere behind me with that distinctive sort of plinking and buzzing. The sign stretches nearly floor to ceiling with glowing, white letters that spell out the words: WHAT DO YOU NEED? WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR? It looks like an art installation at a gallery somewhere, like there should be sculptures and people milling about. Instead, there’s only me and the buzzing and the vibrating and water at the center of

Reviews for Aphrodite Made Me Do It

[anna · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Overall I'd give this a 3.5 / 5 stars! I adored the elements involving Aphrodite, and I loved how much of it felt like very sacred and personal- like I was reading someone's truest confessions. There were still some poems I didn't connect with as much, but overall, I very much enjoyed this.

[Muhammad Rajab Al-mukarrom · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Not really enjoy it but I did love some arts in it.

[elsa · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This poetry book was just so empowering and so beautifully written :((

[aainong · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This so beautiful. So empowering. So relatable. I love it.

[Uroš Martinović · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I found this book to be really important and that a lot of women will relate to this.

[Jaz Taihreen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This made me cry and feel things I didn't realize I needed to feel. Thank you.

[wanderlustlover_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Summer 2019 (Netgalley, Kindle);

Thank you to Trista Mateer, Central Avenue Publishing, and NetGalley for allowing me the extreme pleasure of access to an advanced reader copy of “Aphrodite Made Me Do It" for an honest review.

I jumped at this arc when it was both poetry and Aphrodite related, and then had the great pleasure of discovering it was Trista Mateer's poetry. This was a rich, biting book full of the reclamation of past and future women. I was really pleased to see some of Aphrodite's beginnings addressed, and with such anger toward the future, toward the controlling, cleaning up, and rewriting of women. I was absolutely not expecting the references/appearances of Eve and Pandora and Helen, each of which made the message and the links in the chain of this being done over and over to women through the writing even clearer.

The combination of healing and reclaiming of self, through the past, through love, through healing, was gorgeous. The confessional poetry style, overshot at times with lists and poetic prose kept me involved and invested in all the topics as they continued to be built on across the small text.

I cannot wait to buy a copy of this for myself and a friend of mine who loves all things poetry & Aphrodite.

[thereserose5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A short book of beautifully moving poetry and art

[kitlovestea · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Prose poems can be hit or miss for me, but this collection has a really interesting premise, the language is engaging and the experiences are unfortunately all too relatable. I’ll probably even get a copy when it comes out.

Recommend (with caveats) for: Anyone who is or has struggled with healing from trauma. lovers of mythology who are interested in a rightfully and righteously angry Aphrodite.

Thanks to NetGalley for the chance to read and review this before it’s official release.