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dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Poetry is subjective, and honestly, I hated this.
To me, none of this actually reads as poetry. Poetry and prose are wildly different, made from entirely different structures and sense, and poetry cannot be made just by putting line breaks in sentences to create the illusion of poetry, which is exactly what everything in this collection is. This entire collection read to me as someone putting meaningless line breaks in sentences/affirmations/advice in an attempt to appear as poetry. I also could not see any meaningful reason for everything to be written in lower case, and had a similar usage with the majority of the italics usage, which felt like a forced attempt to make the poems look fancy or profound.
I also struggled to find meaning in the majority of these poems. There were a lot of moments where the poet clearly felt as if something profound had been said, but really it was just a whole lot of nothing - e.g. "your past / is never truly / in the past" or "your weakest moments / are your strongest / in disguise", I think these examples also well illustrate what I was talking about with sentences being broken up with line breaks. This further contributed to this collection feeling more like a collection of statements, affirmations, and advice.
I also think this book (perhaps unintentionally) promotes a lot of really harmful rhetoric. To start off, I found a lot of victim blaming in this book, as well as the poet encouraging readers to forgive those who harmed them because it eventually 'made them stronger', which is obviously an incredibly toxic and unhealthy idea to promote. I'll provide some examples of this below:
"only you can make / yourself a victim"
"to anyone who has ever / filled your heart with sadness / and your eyes with tears / thank them // it's because of them / you're stronger and wiser / than you were then"
"be grateful when someone / tears you apart // they just did the hard work for you // now you can start over and rebuild / with a stronger foundation"
"people are not bad / people have simply lived"
This victim-blaming/forgiveness narrative is also pushed in the acknowledgements, with them opening with the poet thanking the people who "broke" her for allowing her to find the inspiration to write this book.
There are other harmful ideas promoted this book, for example implying that struggling with mental health is a choice ("we choose to stay numb because / we think it keeps us safe // but the most dangerous thing / we can do is forget how to feel"), and other harmful and reductive ideas such as "let oppression be the reason / you work harder than the rest" rather than combatting/calling out why this oppression exists/is harmful in the first place.
I was really disappointed in this collection and don't feel comfortable recommending this at all.
To me, none of this actually reads as poetry. Poetry and prose are wildly different, made from entirely different structures and sense, and poetry cannot be made just by putting line breaks in sentences to create the illusion of poetry, which is exactly what everything in this collection is. This entire collection read to me as someone putting meaningless line breaks in sentences/affirmations/advice in an attempt to appear as poetry. I also could not see any meaningful reason for everything to be written in lower case, and had a similar usage with the majority of the italics usage, which felt like a forced attempt to make the poems look fancy or profound.
I also struggled to find meaning in the majority of these poems. There were a lot of moments where the poet clearly felt as if something profound had been said, but really it was just a whole lot of nothing - e.g. "your past / is never truly / in the past" or "your weakest moments / are your strongest / in disguise", I think these examples also well illustrate what I was talking about with sentences being broken up with line breaks. This further contributed to this collection feeling more like a collection of statements, affirmations, and advice.
I also think this book (perhaps unintentionally) promotes a lot of really harmful rhetoric. To start off, I found a lot of victim blaming in this book, as well as the poet encouraging readers to forgive those who harmed them because it eventually 'made them stronger', which is obviously an incredibly toxic and unhealthy idea to promote. I'll provide some examples of this below:
"only you can make / yourself a victim"
"to anyone who has ever / filled your heart with sadness / and your eyes with tears / thank them // it's because of them / you're stronger and wiser / than you were then"
"be grateful when someone / tears you apart // they just did the hard work for you // now you can start over and rebuild / with a stronger foundation"
"people are not bad / people have simply lived"
This victim-blaming/forgiveness narrative is also pushed in the acknowledgements, with them opening with the poet thanking the people who "broke" her for allowing her to find the inspiration to write this book.
There are other harmful ideas promoted this book, for example implying that struggling with mental health is a choice ("we choose to stay numb because / we think it keeps us safe // but the most dangerous thing / we can do is forget how to feel"), and other harmful and reductive ideas such as "let oppression be the reason / you work harder than the rest" rather than combatting/calling out why this oppression exists/is harmful in the first place.
I was really disappointed in this collection and don't feel comfortable recommending this at all.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence
reflective
fast-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Rape
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Physical abuse
emotional
fast-paced
This is a solid poetry collection with some really powerful poems. I loved the revisiting of the dichotomy of roses, beautiful and able to protect themselves with their sharp thorns, and the ways in which she sees herself in them.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Eating disorder, Rape, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship
Minor: Sexual content