Thursday 18 August 2016

Dabbling in poetry

Over the last month or so I've started to dip my toes into poetry.

I’ve always been pretty afraid of poetry – I won’t understand it. I’m not clever enough. I won’t feel anything. I avoided picking university modules that were poetry heavy and I dreaded it when collections popped up on my reading lists. And yet I love listening to poetry being read aloud and I adore spoken word poetry.

After seeing Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey all over Twitter, Instagram and Goodreads I decided to take the plunge with a birthday book token. I picked it up the day it arrived and devoured it in one sitting. It was like a light bulb turning on in my brain. These poems connected with me and I felt them as well as appreciating the beauty of the writing and the lovely line illustrations.


Maybe I could read poetry after all – it’s just a case of finding the right poets for me.

I was then offered a gorgeous new edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets and I was thoroughly bamboozled one again. As expected. But undeterred, I picked up Michel Faber’s Undying. This was a tough, tough read. Michel Faber wrote this collection in response to the death of his wife from cancer and it’s brutally honest and heart-wrenching. It was another collection that opened my eyes to what modern poetry could be.

I don’t have any more poetry collections on my TBR at the moment so I’d really love some recommendations, particularly modern, female poets.

Sophie 

2 comments:

  1. I definitely believe that it's a case of finding the right poets and poems. When I love a poem, I'll read it over and over again like a favorite song, but when I don't, it won't resonate whatsoever.

    I haven't read much by her yet but I plan on reading some of Warsan Shire's stuff at some point. She had some poetry featured in Beyonce's visual album Lemonade.

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  2. I've heard great things about milk and honey too. I've beeb trying to make it through the Shakespear sonnets as well :)

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