chiara_reads_books 's review for:

Quiet Night Think: Poems & Essays by Gillian Sze

4.0

emotional informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

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A mix of poetry and essays about poetry. Sze takes us on a journey along her creative process, her history with poetry, her personal life. 

And it’s her personal life, pregnancy and motherhood, that becomes central, the focus of her poetry and the obstacle to it at the same time. 

The author reflects on her life and on her writing on a whole new level. Motherhood has changed her approach to the creative process and affects her poetry as well. 

Very dominant is Sze’s family and Chinese heritage as well. Traditional and a bit conservative, her parents weren’t too happy when Sze decided to study creative writing – and her mother was very strict when it came to her pregnancy and then her first month as a mother. 

Quite interesting was the mix of actual poetry and reflections on poetry. It made it all more dynamic and it created a deeper connection with the author.