Poetry – Bookmark Your Thoughts

On an Ebbing Seafoam Tide by Alannah Radburn || Book Review

Published on August 2, 2023October 9, 2023 by Jenna @ Bookmark Your ThoughtsLeave a comment

Love, loss, witchcraft, avocado toast, and storming the patriarchy: an inclusive poetic perspective on millennial life.

The ocean is one of the greatest metaphors: the ebb and flow of love and loss, the tumultuous emotions that roil beneath a blue-calm surface, the search for meaning in the endless horizons of sea and sky. On an Ebbing Seafoam Tide is a deep dive into reflections on the calms and tempests of everyday life.

Alannah Radburn’s poetry floats to the surface amidst the messy chaos of personal relationships and societal constructs, and comes together in a relatable perfect storm of practical wisdom. If you’ve ever felt like you were drowning in feelings or searching to find meaning in today’s turbulent times, you will find a lifeline in these poems.

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Feel Your Way Through by Kelsea Ballerini || Book Review

Published on June 23, 2023October 9, 2023 by Jenna @ Bookmark Your Thoughts2 Comments

The personal and poignant debut poetry collection from the award-winning singer, songwriter, and producer revolves around the emotions, struggles, and experiences of finding your voice and confidence as a woman.

“I’ve realized that some feelings can’t be turned into a song . . . so I’ve started writing poems. Just like my songs, they are personal and honest. Just like my songs, they have hooks and rhymes. Just like my songs, they talk about what it’s like to be twenty-something trying to navigate a wildly beautiful and broken world.”

Deeply felt and candid, Feel Your Way Through grapples with the challenges and celebrates the experiences Kelsea faces as she navigates the twists and turns of growing into a woman today. She addresses themes of family, relationships, body image, self-love, sexuality, and the lessons of youth. The poems speak to the often harsh—and sometimes beautiful—onset of womanhood. Honest, humble, and ultimately hopeful, this collection reveals a new dimension of Kelsea Ballerini’s artistry and talent.

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Fierce Fairytales by Nikita Gill || Book Review

Published on April 27, 2023October 9, 2023 by Jenna @ Bookmark Your ThoughtsLeave a comment

Traditional fairytales are rife with clichés and gender stereotypes: beautiful, silent princesses; ugly, jealous, and bitter villainesses; girls who need rescuing; and men who take all the glory.

But in this rousing new prose and poetry collection, Nikita Gill gives Once Upon a Time a much-needed modern makeover. Through her gorgeous reimagining of fairytale classics and spellbinding original tales, she dismantles the old-fashioned tropes that have been ingrained in our minds. In this book, gone are the docile women and male saviors. Instead, lines blur between heroes and villains. You will meet fearless princesses, a new kind of wolf lurking in the concrete jungle, and an independent Gretel who can bring down monsters on her own.

Complete with beautifully hand-drawn illustrations by Gill herself, Fierce Fairytales is an empowering collection of poems and stories for a new generation.

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Kings and Queens by J.N. Eagles || Book Review

Published on April 25, 2023October 9, 2023 by Jenna @ Bookmark Your ThoughtsLeave a comment

Kings and Queens is a coming of age poetry book. The story follows a young queen as she struggles to find herself while dealing with the king’s rule, the fire-breathing dragon, and the evil queen.

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Break Your Glass Slippers by Amanda Lovelace || Book Review

Published on June 10, 2021October 9, 2023 by Jenna @ Bookmark Your Thoughts3 Comments

amanda lovelace, the bestselling & award-winning author of the “women are some kind of magic” poetry series, presents a new companion series, “you are your own fairy tale” the first installment, break your glass slippers, is about overcoming those who don’t see your worth, even if that person is sometimes yourself. in the epic tale of your life, you are the most important character while everyone is but a forgotten footnote. even the prince.

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Daring To Take Up Space by Daniell Koepke || Book review

Published on April 24, 2021October 9, 2023 by Jenna @ Bookmark Your Thoughts6 Comments

Daniell Koepke is the author behind the Internal Acceptance Movement (I. A.M.). In her first poetry collection, Daniell gives voice to the fear and anxiety, as well as the perseverance and strength, that has been fundamental to her own personal growth journey and the path to deeper and more meaningful self-love and acceptance. In her own words, this book is for “the 17-year-old Daniell who was convinced she was worthless; who was convinced she would never survive or amount to anything. This is for the friends and family who never stopped believing in and supporting her. This is for all the people who feel that they have to shrink and hide who they are in order to be loved and accepted and worth something. This is for anyone who needs a reminder that you deserve to take up space in the world and that you are enough.”

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Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith || Book Review

Published on March 19, 2021September 22, 2023 by Jenna @ Bookmark Your Thoughts6 Comments

Award-winning poet Danez Smith is a groundbreaking force, celebrated for deft lyrics, urgent subjects, and performative power. Don’t Call Us Dead opens with a heartrending sequence that imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police, a place where suspicion, violence, and grief are forgotten and replaced with the safety, love, and longevity they deserved here on earth. Smith turns then to desire, mortality the dangers experienced in skin and body and blood and a diagnosis of HIV positive. “Some of us are killed / in pieces,” Smith writes, some of us all at once. Don’t Call Us Dead is an astonishing and ambitious collection, one that confronts, praises, and rebukes America–“Dear White America”–where every day is too often a funeral and not often enough a miracle.

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Build Yourself a Boat by Camonghne Felix || Book Review

Published on February 13, 2021September 22, 2023 by Jenna @ Bookmark Your Thoughts2 Comments

This is about what grows through the wreckage. This is an anthem of survival and a look at what might come after. A view of what floats and what, ultimately, sustains.

Build Yourself a Boat, an innovative debut by award-winning poet Camonghne Felix, interrogates generational trauma, the possibility of healing, and the messiness of survival.

Build Yourself a Boat redefines the language of collective and individual trauma through lyric and memory.

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Swimming Lessons by Lili Reinhart || Book Review

Published on January 15, 2021September 22, 2023 by Jenna @ Bookmark Your Thoughts4 Comments

Swimming Lessons explores the euphoric beginnings of young love, battling anxiety and depression in the face of fame, and the inevitable heartbreak that stems from passion. Relatable yet deeply intimate, provocative yet comforting, bite-sized yet profound, Lili’s poems reflect her trademark honesty and unique perspective. Accompanied by striking and evocative illustrations, Swimming Lessons reveals the depths of female experience, and is the work of a storyteller who is coming into her own.

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home body by Rupi Kaur || Book Review

Published on January 10, 2021September 22, 2023 by Jenna @ Bookmark Your Thoughts6 Comments

Rupi Kaur constantly embraces growth, and in home body, she walks readers through a reflective and intimate journey visiting the past, the present, and the potential of the self. home body is a collection of raw, honest conversations with oneself – reminding readers to fill up on love, acceptance, community, family, and embrace change. Illustrated by the author, themes of nature and nurture, light and dark, rest here.

i dive into the well of my body
and end up in another world
everything i need
already exists in me
there’s no need
to look anywhere else
– home

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