USEREVIEW 109 (Capsule): Let the World Have You

Manahil Bandukwala/ February 1, 2023/ Book Review, Capsule Review

Mikko Harvey
Let the World Have You (House of Anansi Press, 2022)
ISBN 978-1-48701-069-0 | 96 pp | $19.99 CAD | BUY Here

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Mikko Harvey’s second book of poems, Let the World Have You (House of Anansi, 2022) is a dive into a strange and surreal world. Like his debut collection Unstable Neighbourhood Rabbit, Harvey’s newest work is full of animals and other creatures interacting with the daily occurrences of our lives. In ‘Funny Business,’ the speaker is “too busy demonstrating / myself to the universe. / I was too busy turning strangers into sites of worship.” This same poem, with its philosophical musings, ends with the speaker rolling around in the yard, pretending to be a worm, only to accidentally crush a real worm. The bizarreness of the poems’ premises meets a yearning and desire for intimate human connection. This connection is “a fine / feeling being / at ease together never / having known each / other’s fur.” Harvey scrutinizes the most minute, putting a microscope on “not god exactly, but at least something / inexplicable. Something strange and worth / briefly turning your face toward.”


Recommended excerpt:

There are so many poems to recommend from this collection, but one I keep returning to is ‘Wet Fur’ (p. 15). The poem starts with the lines: “We like to describe the heart as heavy / when it’s more like an old wolf / gone hungry, wondering / why bother restarting the hunt?” This poem dips into terms and tropes of our lives, such as Myers-Briggs personality tests, making me fully relate to the goings-on as “a rabbit emerges from a hole in the dirt / and everything forgives itself for just / continuing to exist.”


Manahil Bandukwala is a writer and visual artist. Her debut poetry collection is MONUMENT (Brick Books, 2022). More: manahilbandukwala.com

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