{"id":10821,"date":"2021-02-23T01:24:24","date_gmt":"2021-02-22T20:24:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/my-heart-is-rose-manhattan-nikki-reimer-2\/"},"modified":"2023-02-14T01:32:25","modified_gmt":"2023-02-13T20:32:25","slug":"my-heart-is-rose-manhattan-nikki-reimer-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/editorials\/my-heart-is-rose-manhattan-nikki-reimer-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Gourmet Ginger Ale and Modern Ails <em>My Heart Is a Rose Manhattan<\/em> by Nikki Reimer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In particular, Reimer explores how city life can skew our relationships to our world and to each other. Whether she\u2019s contemplating how \u201cevery minute in the shower kills another acre of ocean\u201d or musing about a \u201ccold-pressed coffee farm,\u201d Reimer demonstrates that she\u2019s doing her best to keep her finger on the pulse of Canada\u2019s urban reality.<\/p>\n<p>Between conveying Alberta\u2019s anxieties surrounding the future of the oil industry and examining northwestern British Columbia\u2019s eclectic spirit, the poet\u2019s unfiltered takes on the nation are grounded in the ethos of each province\u2013that is, both the outward reputation they curate and the culture they maintain on the ground.<\/p>\n<p>The poet also speaks directly to the toxicity of social media and Internet culture throughout the collection. While she admits that she\u2019ll \u201cgo blind\u201d before she deletes her Facebook account, she can\u2019t help but poke fun at the very culture that makes the Internet go round with the poem \u201cAsk yourself: what does the culture WANT.\u201d Likewise, in \u201c27,000 graham crackers,\u201d she concludes that to become internet famous is to accept \u201cvisibility as violence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At times, the poet speaks directly to the modern woman. In \u201cpublic intellectuals,\u201d she reviews all of the nonsensical postures, behaviours, and facial expressions women adopt to remain safe while navigating city streets\u2014whether it\u2019s remembering to \u201cconstantly scan but don\u2019t be obvious\u201d or walking with \u201cintelligent posture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With her piece \u201cTrigger warning,\u201d Reimer reviews just how callous the city can be towards women. The poem features four voices swapping stories of sexual misconduct and in turn interjecting the rumours, excuses, and sympathies for the perpetrator that consequently surface all too often in such situations. The narrative is damning in its indictment of how communities address sexual assault, and it offers a careful reminder that rape culture is alive and well\u2014even in our own circles.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, Reimer\u2019s sharp wit and casual authenticity imbue the collection with levity. With poems like \u201cTwenty-three totally free Canadian indie band names \/ first album title combos for the taking! Book festivals! Impress your friends! Support your country!\u201d (which features such stellar suggestions as \u201cOssington Ave. Basement Ste. \u2013 <em>Gentrification Situation<\/em>\u201d), and \u201cRules for better living,\u201d where she ranks \u201cCAN YOU LEGITIMATELY NOT PUT THE EMPTY ALMOND MILK CONTAINER BACK IN THE FRIDGE\u201d at a respectable number five, the poet manages to build unexpected moments of humour into her collection by harnessing her powers of observation.<\/p>\n<p>In \u201ctrying to be a person \/ rather than a bone frock,\u201d Reimer has fashioned a remarkably genuine poetic voice. Between her efforts to work through her personal grief and her insistence on airing out her grievances with contemporary life, Reimer has successfully crafted a collection that paints a holistic portrait of what it takes to be a modern woman.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia Eqbal<\/strong> is a recent graduate of Western University. She is a freelance writer based in Mississauga with a passion for theatre and a penchant for pop culture. Previous credits include Poetry London, Polemical Zine, and Semicolon.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span lang=\"fr-CA\"><a href=\"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/?page_id=1295\">ARC<\/a> HITS THE HEART HARD.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:tadv\/classic-paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Concerned with the disease of modern life, Nikki Reimer\u2019s poetry collection, <em>My Heart Is a Rose Manhattan<\/em>, thinks honestly about the different ways we experience connection, grief, and womanhood in the urban centers of today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3304,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"10813,10762,16241","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1400,1827],"tags":[],"genre":[21],"publisher":[217],"issue":[],"poet-in-residence":[],"series":[3131],"topic":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10821"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10821"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=10821"},{"taxonomy":"publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publisher?post=10821"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=10821"},{"taxonomy":"poet-in-residence","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/poet-in-residence?post=10821"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=10821"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=10821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}