A review of I Want to Take You Everywhere by Cassandra Manzolillo

We’re thrilled to share a powerful and deeply thoughtful review of Cassandra Manzolillo’s debut poetry collection, I Want to Take You Everywhere, published by BlazeVOX in July 2024.

In a review published on April 6, poet and critic Cynie Cory offers a searing, insightful meditation on Manzolillo’s work, describing the collection as a “neo-confessional, therapeutic process” where meaning-making is embodied—literally. These poems chart the poet’s journey through trauma, identity, and reclamation of the self. Cory does not shy away from the raw vulnerability of the book, recognizing both its uneasy beginnings and its ultimate evolution into clarity and control.

Through “poems (themselves bodies),” Manzolillo explores the psychic fallout of childhood trauma with language that “folds and unfolds,” demanding patience from the reader and inviting them to bear witness to the complexity of recovery. As Cory writes, “Her body, which is part of her identity, is achieved through the body of her work and is transferred to the reader’s body.”

The review celebrates the poet’s progression, culminating in lines of striking maturity and emotional resonance—particularly in poems like “Temple Watching” and “People Watching,” where form, voice, and authority come into full power.

We’re grateful to Cynie Cory for this generous and rigorous reading, and proud to publish Cassandra Manzolillo’s fearless debut.

📖 I Want to Take You Everywhere is available now. Open the book. We dare you not to look away.

Read the whole review here:
https://compulsivereader.com/2025/04/06/a-review-of-i-want-to-take-you-everywhere-by-cassandra-manzolillo/

Buy I Want to Take You Everywhere by Cassandra Manzolillo here:

https://www.blazevox.org/shop-1/p/i-want-to-take-you-everywhere-by-cassandra-manzolillo