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A review by duhnae
Is This Scary?: Poems by Jacob Scheier
4.0
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I was drawn to “Is This Scary?” first by the title and cover design, and then to the concept of a poetry collection about experiencing both mental illness and physical ailments, as well as the treatment of the two.
In that sense, I really enjoyed this collection. I did quite a bit of googling about the different treatments and medications depicted in Scheier’s writing, and I thought it was clever how he wove in specific references to each of them. I feel like I learned a lot! I do appreciate that Scheier’s poems are honest and make no attempt to glorify living with mental illness as I’ve seen others do, but rather, he offers a look into how difficult, overwhelming, and cyclical it can feel. As someone who experiences a different kind of mental illness, I think he captured those struggles and how they come and go very well.
My personal favourites from the collection were “To My Friends Who Did Not Visit Me in the Mental Hospital,” “Circular Labyrinth,” “Self-Parenting,” “Song to the Suicides,” as well as “And Then Job Answered God from inside the Whirlwind They Were Both Caught inside of.” In these poems, I was struck by the format, and by the unique connection between mental illness and things I had not thought of. For example, the idea of those cyclical feelings being like trapped in a labyrinth stood out to me. Additionally, I’m always a big fan when authors link biblical references with their poems.
While there were a lot of poems that held me and I found myself thinking about afterwards, oppositely, I did not find his poems related to love to be memorable to me. The imagery and metaphors were not as strong as those found in other works.
Overall, I would give this collection 3.5/5 and I would be interested in reading more from Scheier in the future.
I was drawn to “Is This Scary?” first by the title and cover design, and then to the concept of a poetry collection about experiencing both mental illness and physical ailments, as well as the treatment of the two.
In that sense, I really enjoyed this collection. I did quite a bit of googling about the different treatments and medications depicted in Scheier’s writing, and I thought it was clever how he wove in specific references to each of them. I feel like I learned a lot! I do appreciate that Scheier’s poems are honest and make no attempt to glorify living with mental illness as I’ve seen others do, but rather, he offers a look into how difficult, overwhelming, and cyclical it can feel. As someone who experiences a different kind of mental illness, I think he captured those struggles and how they come and go very well.
My personal favourites from the collection were “To My Friends Who Did Not Visit Me in the Mental Hospital,” “Circular Labyrinth,” “Self-Parenting,” “Song to the Suicides,” as well as “And Then Job Answered God from inside the Whirlwind They Were Both Caught inside of.” In these poems, I was struck by the format, and by the unique connection between mental illness and things I had not thought of. For example, the idea of those cyclical feelings being like trapped in a labyrinth stood out to me. Additionally, I’m always a big fan when authors link biblical references with their poems.
While there were a lot of poems that held me and I found myself thinking about afterwards, oppositely, I did not find his poems related to love to be memorable to me. The imagery and metaphors were not as strong as those found in other works.
Overall, I would give this collection 3.5/5 and I would be interested in reading more from Scheier in the future.