For a while there,
I lost my voice.
I let someone else’s laugh muffle by shouts
for rebellion.
But I am a woman,
hear me roar.
I’ve got no time for heels,
or a cat call.
Because I broke free,
from the good girl mentality
and now, here I stand
Just as good as any man.
I won’t be silent.
I won’t be contained.
Because I am a woman.
I don’t need to be saved.
Holly McNish is on her way to Glastonbury when she decides to take a pregnancy test, the blue lines appear and it’s not long after that Hollie starts writing her thoughts and feelings down. This continues throughout the entirety of her pregnancy all the way through to her child’s third birthday. A collection of diary entries and poetry.
I picked this up while waiting for the train after seeing it on a list of incredible poetry collections. Seeing as my dissertation and another of my final essays was about the female body, motherhood and poetry so of course, I wanted to read this. It was even better than I could have imagined.
I want to point out that I’ve never had children but I loved this collection and found it SO relatable. At each and every point in this Hollie is honest about her feelings. She talks about the changes in her body during pregnancy, birth and post birth and how they make her feel. The resentment she sometimes feels for her partner. The need she had to go back to work while struggling with the guilt of being a working mother.
It won’t be much of a surprise to say that I really, really enjoyed this collection. It is a lot bigger than most poetry collections but I think that’s because it does have the prose/diary entries too rather than just poems. I felt like that is what made it better though. There was so much to say and it didn’t feel crammed.
I gave this the full 5 stars and I can’t wait to read more of Hollie’s work. There is honesty, humour and wise words within this book and I want to recommend it to all of my poetry-loving friends. An absolutely fantastic read and I cannot recommend it enough.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted any of my own creative writing. In the last month or so I’ve thought a lot about my own writing and where I want to go with it. I was also lucky enough to be told I’ll be published in 2018 which gave me a great confidence boost!
I wrote the following poem when I didn’t have that when I was just coming out of a pretty lonely and dark period of my life. The thing is, hope is important, but it’s not always at the front of your mind. When it does start to appear you need to grab it with both hands and try and hold on. I hope you enjoy this poem. – Chloe Metzger.
Hope.
A four letter word
but it means
I start seeing
my heart starts beating.
Again.
Hope.
That I am not the only one
who is hopeless,
useless
Me.
Hope.
A helping hand
loud voices
You stand out my girl,
Proud
I have some super exciting news! I’m going to be published! Yes, a piece of my work is going to be published in an actual physical book! The plan for tonight was to do my normal Thursday book review, but then I got an email. So, how did this come about?
I was lucky enough back in 2015 to be offered the chance to go to Athens as part of Kingston Writing School and I got to learn from the wonderful K.J. Orr about writing as well as being with other writers. I loved the course, I’d happily go back again to learn. This summer that will have been 3 years ago. Each year writers of the Summer School get the opportunity to submit pieces for an anthology.
I submitted last year and, unfortunately, didn’t get chosen which is fine because I don’t think it was my best work. This year, however, I wrote two poems, worked on them and submitted them in the new year. I wish I could say forgot about them but I didn’t I checked my email every day and…it worked.
I got the confirmation email today and I’m so, so excited. I love to write, I’ve always loved to write as soon as I learnt how to. Knowing that my name, my piece is going to be in a book is incredible. I also pretty sure that it’s only the start. I want and am working on writing my first novel in a series.
I’m so excited and I couldn’t wait to share this with you because honestly, I feel like writing my blog for the past few years has made me a better writer. I think about my content, the language and what you guys want to read alongside my own ideas. So a big thank you to everyone who reads my blog!
I’ll keep you all updated!
If you’re looking for something that’s short, funny and light then this collection is perfect for you. I was first drawn to this on a Christmas display in my local Waterstones, I’d never heard of Wendy Cope and this year I’ve been on a big poetry kick, wanting to grow my collection. My Mum was lovely enough to buy this for me as a gift, I didn’t know at the time that I was going to find one of my favourite poets.
It’s hard to write humour and even harder to write it into poetry. Wendy Cope has managed to make me laugh out loud so many times while reading which was a complete delight. This isn’t a typical collection of snow, angels and the like, Cope has a brilliant wit and sense of realism as to what Christmas is like for most of us.
If you want something seasonal but not too long I would 100% recommend picking up Cope’s collection. It’s absolutely wonderful without being cheesy.
What is your favourite seasonal read? Let me know in the comments below!
Giving books is one of the best things about Christmas for me. If I can find a book for someone, I will. So how about some ideas that I can personally recommend to you all? These are all books that I’ve read this year and should be available in all good bookshops.
Poetry
This is Rupi Kaur’s second collection and was even better than the first, which I didn’t think was possible. The collection can also work as a stand-alone collection if the person your buying for hasn’t read the first. You can read my review here.
Young Adult
One of the biggest superstars came back after 6 years away with a cracker. Turtles deals with the complexities of living with OCD as well as a missing mystery billionaire. You can read my review here.
Autobiography
This isn’t something that I would have just picked up off of the shelf, it was only after hearing an interview I decided to give it a go. This goes far beyond an autobiography it talks about gender, sexuality, loss and depression. It was really eye-opening. Review here.
Historical Fiction
It has been a long time since I’ve read a good Historical Fiction novel. Set in the 1930s and featuring an LGBTQ protagonist this is a must-read. Review here.
Memoir
I couldn’t just pick one these were both amazing. My Lovely Wife is about a families struggle with Bipolar Disorder through the eyes of a partner. My Shitty Twenties is the memoir of Emily who unexpectedly fell pregnant in her early 20s and what it was like to have her life change so unexpectedly, review here.
Contemporary Fiction
This is super weird but really enjoyable. Told from the perspective of an unborn foetus this looks at the world in a truly unique way. I absolutely loved it and would read it again and again.
Fantasy
If you have someone in your life who loves Game of Thrones and is having withdrawal symptoms this is perfect. This is set before A Song of Ice and Fire but it’s just as engaging and a lot shorter than the songs in the series.
Have I missed any great reads? Let me know in the comments below!
This post is not sponsored in any way.
There are times when I cannot write,
from my brain to my fingertips
it just doesn’t come out right.
When my head is too sleepy
or my heart is too full
or I’m just not feeling writing glee
Does that rhyme not show
that today is indeed one of those
Yes, I’ve sunk to that low
You see I want to write,
each and every day
So this internal battle I’ll still fight
I’ll drag those words from every corner of my brain
Get out here you guys, I need you
God, writers block is a pain.
Our lives, are screens.
For we are the generation,
that has never seen.
The world without a way to capture it.
As if our memories are damned,
or at least, that’s the mould they want us to fit.
But perhaps, we want something that we can hold on to,
If the world starts to fall apart, again.
To prove the happiness was true.
We are the generation, that cannot have a home
Constantly moving and changing
But we should be saving, not daring to roam
I’m part of a generation, damned before we start.
Judged and questioned looking through screens,
to try and mend our broken hearts.
The latest release by Nikita Gill has been getting rave reviews, a collection focusing on passion, identity, the universe and femininity. I was thankful to receive a copy of Wild Embers for review by Netgalley. This is my first encounter with Gill’s work.
This is a collection of both poetry and prose, which I haven’t come across before. I’m used to collections being one or the other, therefore felt the flow was slightly interrupted and at times hard to get into. That said, Gill clearly has a talent for both. In fact, I would gladly read a collection of short prose, something that I don’t believe Gill has released before.
There is, however, a strong female message behind the majority of her work. Poems such as ‘Witches’ and ‘Dragons Breath’ uses fantasy elements to reiterate the strength of women and their capabilities of being powerful in their own right, challenging how women are seen in traditional fairy tales.
Dismissing traditional ideas of femininity takes centre stage the prose pieces, as Disney Princesses get rewritten into feminist heroes with their own thoughts and agendas, not waiting for a prince to save them. We’re also introduced to Greek Goddesses, wise and intelligent. In this instance it reminded me of Carol Ann Duffy’s, The Worlds Wife, a wonderful collection. I would love to see what else Gill could do with these characters in further collections of prose or poetry.
I gave Gill’s collection 3 stars. I enjoyed experiencing a new poet and felt that there was huge potential in what Gill was writing about. That said, I struggled with the layout and, at times, felt that there could have been more of a structure to the way that the collection was presented. I did have times where I wasn’t as enthusiastic as I wanted to be. Despite this I’d really like to try out some more of Gill’s work to experience her work.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this opportunity.
I love Sylvia Plath, back when I was at university, not knowing who I was or what I was doing (although that’s still ongoing). There is something about Plath that spoke to me in so many different ways, but there is something she knew well. The fight between self-doubt and creativity.
I’ve always found myself to be a creative person, writing stories and poems since I was small, singing, acting, dancing. When you’re young, for many there is no such thing as self-doubt, you dream and you do, that’s it. It’s only as you get older that a voice pipes up in your mind, not of hope, but of doubt.
For the past few years, I’ve had my heart set on writing a book, my laptop currently full of ideas and different starts. I have poems and song scrawled in notebooks at mine and my parents. I can’t help but have these ideas come into my head and keep going. That said, they remain unfinished and I know why. That little monster of self-doubt creeps in eventually and makes me want to get rid of it all!
With all this in mind, I want to get rid of my fear. I want to break free of my self-doubt and internal criticism. So, I’ve started just writing and not reading over it as soon as I finish. I’ve also been listening occasionally to the audiobook of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear.
How do you help yourself when it comes to self-doubt and creative fear? Let me know in the comments below.
Chloe Metzger 