Review: Maybe the Body: Poems - Asa Drake

Genre: Poetry

Published: Tin House, February 2026

My Rating: 4/5 stars

“Beloved, if I titled this poem

My Mothers America, would it contain her mother? And how long

before you know the urgency of this sentence is lost”

Maybe the Body is a debut poetry collection by Filipino-American author Asa Drake, that centers themes of belonging, nature-vs-nurture and body, alongside undertones of political dissonance and predator-prey-dynamics in our everyday lives.

I was positively surprised with how much this collection resonated with me, as often “prose-poetry” is hit or miss for me. That being said: thematically, this was straight up my alley. I loved the imagery and metaphors the author chose to build this collection on, and really appreciated how her language flowed, despite not adhering to a classical metrum or rhyme.

I personally don’t know enough about the authors background (my ARC didn’t include the acknowledgements or author-biography yet) to say for sure if this was autobiographical in any way. I have to say that - especially in its themes of displacement, familial lineage and cultural heritage – it felt deeply authentic and personal, in a way that made me appreciate the poems even more. Overall I’d highly recommend this collection to anyone, but especially those familiar with the themes of cultural in-between-ness and dissonance that seem more and more relevant every day. Some of these lines will live rent-free in my mind for quite a while.

Some of my personal favourite poems include:

- Yonder

- To someone who’s heard, I love you, too many times (in all its iterations and variations)

- I’m interested in how animals teach us pleasure

As a final note: I think it’s worth crediting the cover-artist for the edition too, as they’ve done a fantastic job of capturing the nature of this collection in a visual. It’s vibrant and provocative, bright pink and sweet-looking on the surface, but has a distinctive feeling of tension and unease with the bunny and the snake (both recurrent motifs in the collection). Perfect example of form matching content here!

Many thanks to Tin House Press through Netgalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

You can find this book here on Goodreads.