#NationalPoetryMonth: La La Love by Katie Lewington Book Review

Subjectivity is poetry’s secret talent. Whether or not you find the words on the paper poetry, if a poet labels it poetry, no one can argue that it isn’t because poetry unlike fiction is more for the free-spirited and those who are exploring it’s free range in the field of writing.

For example, my favorite poet is Lang Leav and my sisters are die-hard Rupi Kaur fans.

Poetry has to use the right combination of imagery and emotion, and has to make me feel like I read something that was between the lines on the page. Few people can achieve the knock me off my feet feeling with their poetry but for me, Lang Leav comes pretty darn close.

With La La Love, Katie Lewington is in a league all her own. All poems within the chapbook showcase the different levels of vulnerability love unravels in us as we experience it within a relationship or develop the feelings.

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Picture this was one of my favorites because it reads like a spoken word poem. It has rhythm, cadence, and an overall musicality that could be performed. This also further proved that Lewington’s talent for poetry was multi-faceted, and although her book was themed with love poems, she could have you in a crowded pub or restaurant aware of every sound or gesture made by the people that were inhabiting the space between the walls.

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Katie Lewington was recently featured in a poetry anthology called

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It is a book of mental health themed poetry with proceeds that are going toward the mental health charity out of the UK, Mind. Click the image above in order to purchase the anthology.

 

#NationalPoetryMonth: Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur

Poetry is like reading one of those little notes you used to pass around in middle school. So short and sweet but if you found one laying on the ground or accidentally got passed one, it was like you got to be part of the secret, and you instantly felt like you weren’t alone in your feelings.

Milk and Honey is like that. It’s short, sweet, and oh so vital for today’s society. It says so much without saying it that by the end of the book, you feel as though you want to hug Rupi Kaur for all she writes about but also feel that if she hugged you back, it would be because you experienced similar situations which is why her words jumped off the page and danced before you a private ballet.

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The second read through of Milk and Honey showed the heartaches I was most familiar with and how Kaur’s words healed them.

When my sisters both read her book, I actually rolled my eyes because why would they fall head over heals for a book unless it was popular. Then, I retracted that eye roll when (plus I realized my sisters don’t read that much) I started reading it and Kaur’s words grabbed me by the shirt collar like a thug on the street looking to rob me but then mistakenly realized I was a long lost cousin and smoothed down my shirt and said, Coffee?

So we sat down metaphorically and sipped coffee and discussed the four different heartaches we’ve known:

  1.  The Hurting 
  2. The Loving
  3. The Breaking
  4. The Healing

As you can see from my notes, the poems in the Breaking and Healing sections spoke the most to my wallflower heart. Without further ado, here is some of my favorite poems shared with public permission from Rupi Kaur’s Facebook page:

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I want to marry this poem and divorce it all in the same moment.

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