Title: Wild Flowers
Release: November 1st 2018
Genre: Poetry, Mental Health, LGBT, Self-love
Author: Michelle S. Smith
My Rating: 4.5/5 Stars
Synopsis:
This collection of Poetry and Prose is an explosion of femininity, empowerment, and personal growth. Michelle celebrates her triumph over mental illness and promotes resilience and self-love in her readers.
Review:
*I was sent a copy of this book by the author, in exchange for my honest opinion.
I haven’t read any poetry in a long time, so I was looking forward to diving back into it with this one. I also haven’t reviewed any poetry on here before, but I’m hoping to change that in the future, as I enjoyed this collection quite a lot and I truly believe that you can get just as much out of a collection of poems, as you can from a full novel. Just like a novel, poetry can take you on a journey and this is exactly what Wild Flowers did. The collection is split into five different sections – Loss, Pain and Depression, Abandonment, Love and Sexuality, Empowerment and lastly, Healing. As I’m sure you can guess from the section titles, there is a clear journey in this book from working through more difficult feelings and themes, to then gradually moving towards rebuilding self esteem and consequently, self love. I think that this was a brilliant way to structure the book as it made this gradual progression a lot clearer and allowed me to fully experience moving from the ‘bad into the good’, which I think made this several times more powerful!
I have the sense that these poems are a very personal collection of work for the author, as poetry often is, but I truly felt as though the author was just candidly speaking their experiences, which was really lovely. It made the poems so much more personal and emotional. And the author didn’t shy away from any topic, as grief, betrayal, heartache, falling in love and even sexuality is explored. Each of these topics clearly allowed me to see the authors stance on them, as although written in poetry form, the ideas were explored thoroughly and extremely well. In terms of being the most impactful and having some very important things to say, the section on Sexuality would probably stand out to me. This is because the author discussed her own truths, misconceptions about people who are a part of the LGBT community, and how what her, and so many others feel, is not a choice or wrong. I would say that some of the poems on Sexuality could of easily been added to the Empowerment section, as they would probably create that exact feeling for those who are a part of that community.
If I had to choose my favourite section though, it would probably have to be the first section on Loss, Pain and Depression. I think that this section stood out to me the most, because of just how honest it was in its depiction of mental health, and just how well it managed to discuss these more complicated feelings. I’m always in awe of how poets are able to communicate so much in such a short amount of sentences, I could easily grasp exactly what the author was going through and although it was very sad at times, I have to commend the author for being so open and vulnerable about their experiences. Through this collection I was reminded of just how cathartic poetry can be for both poet and reader, and think that this would be the perfect poetry collection for those going through, or who have been through any of these subjects, especially women, as it maintains a clear focus on empowerment of women. I really see the beauty in honouring the more negative feelings and then showing that it’s possible to come out the other side, and Wild Flowers offers the perfect balance, and so, I would definitely recommend picking it up!
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Muse of Nyxmares 