If They Come for Us by Fatimah Asghar

If They Come for Us by Fatimah Asghar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There's a lot about the partition of India and Pakistan in this poetry collection, which is really interesting, but what resonated with me the most is Asghar's grief at losing her parents and her loneliness and feelings of otherness. Her poetry is brave and raw.

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This Bright Darkness by Sarah McKinstry-Brown

This Bright Darkness by Sarah McKinstry-Brown
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is really different because the poems follow a narrative about Persephone and her mother Demeter. I love mythology and this reminded me of the feeling of reading the epic poetry Odyssey, but at the same time, experiencing certain modern thinking underneath.

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Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Feels like the bad parts of being in my 20s again.

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Adultolescence by Gabbie Hanna

Adultolescence by Gabbie Hanna
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

What is going on here? Is this supposed to be Shel Silverstein for confused and sad college students? Maybe I've been caught off guard because I didn't know the author is a YouTube personality in advance? (I mostly only ever look at BookTube, live news feeds, or late night comedy on YouTube.)

Some of the poems have value as a humorous or silly way to describe the confusion of your 20s or the millennial experience. Even these seem pretty unpolished. Who is the audience for self-deprecating silly poems? Then all of the sudden there are "serious" unhumourous poems. In many of these, Hanna overshoots a lot. Here's just one example, the poem about divorce-- missed the mark by a lot. Probably would have been better to work on a smaller number of good poems rather than 170-something quickly written poems.


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