Gravitas

Gravitas is published by Éditions du Noroît in Canada and Total Joy in the US. The Noroît edition is bilingual (Gravitas / Poèmes deep), with French translation by Daphné B. and Marie Frankland. The Total Joy edition includes several poems from The Feeling Is Mutual, the out-of-print 2009 anthology of collectively written poems by the Washtenaw County Women’s Poetry Collective & Casserole Society. Read a few poems from Gravitas in Sporklet.

"GRAVITAS is elegant, spare, and true. Berkowitz writes beautifully heart-breaking poetry."
—Myriam Gurba

"The gravitas of GRAVITAS emerges not only from its sharp indictment of serial abusers (and the people and institutions who protect them) but from its quieter moments shared between women: cooking and making art and drinking wine and asking each other about yeast infections and faith. Amy Berkowitz is a writer of astonishing depth and talent, and her GRAVITAS deserves to be read and reread. I didn’t realize how badly I needed it."
—Jeannie Vanasco

"Amy Berkowitz's GRAVITAS reminds us of our roles as teachers, citizens, and conscious human beings. It reminds me of my responsibilities to my students: to use my voice, to claim my agency, and to say, hey motherfuckers, I see you hiding behind closed doors."
—Truong Tran

“With an unflinchingness inherent to its title and the community-minded honesty of kitchen talk, GRAVITAS lambasts institutions that shroud abusers in the protection of their tenure, breaking apart a closed-lip social code that once stifled both Berkowitz and her MFA peers. In an all-caps MAGIC return to form, Berkowitz’s poems smoke, paint, cook, ride, kick, and punch—honoring the resilience of survivors who, even when faced with insidiousness, continue to find beauty in their lives."
—Sadie Dupuis

“In GRAVITAS, Berkowitz shows us what strength can be. There is a cathartic satisfaction in reading this book, something akin to microdosing revenge.”
—Angel Dominguez

“GRAVITAS is infuriating while also being deeply funny and sadly all too recognizable. This book is a reckoning, and I highly recommend it.”
—Gina Myers

“I encourage everyone to read and teach GRAVITAS. This book belongs in the classroom.”
—Anna Zumbahlen, New Books Network

“This necessary book insists on the power and merit of everyday speech in women’s writing.”
—Marisa Crawford, Electric Literature

“In this short, powerful collection of poems, Berkowitz dares to speak plainly about the abuse she and others endured at a prestigious MFA program. More than a decade after graduating, she finds freedom and power in these poems, reclaiming a form she lost to speak truth and understand what happened to her. These poems manage both to talk to you ‘like a friend’ and to smash the silence around abuse to examine the loneliness of trying to make art in a hierarchical, hypocritical system.”
—S.J. Buckley, Full Stop

"GRAVITAS is a short collection, but one of overwhelming density. It's Amy Berkowitz's acidic, intimate, free, and assertive poetic statement. It's truly a hard-hitting book, pleasantly unsettling and important."
—Marjolaine Beauchamps, Il restera toujours de la culture

“FUCK YES FUCK YES FUCK YES FUCKING YES EXACTLY.”
—Caren Beilin

"A short but powerful collection that demands a simple, real, and feminist poetics, that speaks of violence, women's strategies for survival (and for bringing their creations to life), their determination, and their sisterhood. The author frees herself once and for all from the dominant patriarchal culture, giving her words and those of her sisters their rightful place."
—Autrices & Héroïnes

“GRAVITAS slaps.”
— germ lynn

“In unadorned language, Berkowitz goes beyond mere resentment and reclaims her freedom, joining the sisterhood that allows her to 'honor [her] voice / honor [her] anger.'"
—Yannick Marcoux, Le Devoir

“GRAVITAS is a must-read. The poetry collection is a reckoning, written with tremendous clarity and grace.”
—Emily Brandt