Jemima Hughes - "Into the ordinary"
Book Review
JEMIMA HUGHES is a poet that I've been lucky enough
to have seen numerous times over the years, a true gift to the poetry community,
with a beautiful way of delivering very serious messages,
without ever sounding like she is trying to preach.
Her words come from her life,
and you can feel every emotion, the tear-stained ink smearing her pages,
in the way she twists her words miraculously.
Her previous collection 'unorthodox' was a real breath of fresh air,
well more like a gale force wind in fact. blowing through
and announcing Jemima as a true force of nature.
So here we are, with her second collection 'Into the ordinary'
Where 'unorthodox' was a book of what had been,
and things that had happened,
'into the ordinary' is a book of hope for the future,
recovering a day at a time.
That isn't to say it’s all happy poems, some of these are deep and dark,
like lakes that we are swimming under, but through the reedy words
and the tantalising rhymes we glimpse the surface and towards it we climb.
Poems like 'his name is...' which should be a message
to all men out there to be better, that the toxic male energy needs to stop.
But also, that we need to understand what it feels like to be a woman,
when us men can seem so threatening. Poems like this don't just deserve to be published,
they should be taught in schools, prisons, everywhere, because we need to learn.
The poems are deeply personal. You know, just from reading, that tears
have been wept, sleep has been disturbed, memories have crept through
and tapped a rhythm unperturbed, to get these words onto the page.
But they are also universal,
the struggles we all face, the mountains we all climb,
the down days, the longing for answers to untold mysteries.
It's all here,
in this book, in these verses, across these pages.
It speaks to us all,
it says learn to love yourself,
for who you are,
not what you have endured,
Love the so-called flaws.
It is a beautiful book, one I will be revisiting many a time I am sure,
and I would highly recommend it to anyone, it has so much depth and heart.
Grab a copy here
Peace, Love and Poery
Kyle
No comments:
Post a Comment