1 star
A disappointing read from a book with such a catchy title and lovely cover. Loved the idea but the execution did not work for me.
For me, this book tries to do too much. It is part memoir, part poetry anthology, and part poetry analysis with some facts and quotes from other poets thrown in. The organization is choppy and did not flow naturally. The timeline itself felt muddled.
Each chapter follows the same format. Bialosky recounts difficult times in her life. She connects (often shallowly) these events with poems she likes. She then provides an elementary analysis of the poem (often little more than a summary). She also includes information about the quoted poet’s life, which detracts the focus from own life story. The analyses themselves are often only how the poem connects with Bialosky herself, not necessarily what it actually means or the poet’s true intent. The analysis often lacks deep meaning, giving a very surface-level look at each poem. This makes it difficult to assess the target audience.
The delicate balance between Bialosky’s life and the story of poetry was unsteady. It is entirely reasonable for a memoir to focus on its author, but in this case, doing so diluted the poems included by only recognizing what was relevant to Bialosky herself. She uses her own personal allusions that do not transfer to the reader or even the original poet.
This is most clear in sections such as Shame, where Bialosky connects the meaning-soaked words of Langston Hughes with a childhood story about taking a bus ride through “the rundown sections of Cleveland known as the ghetto” where she witnesses “black children dressed in thin, torn coats, with no stockings… playing on a porch” (p. 27). This chapter in particular was especially clunky as she distorts Hughes’ words about racial inequality and power, and puts herself at the center the story.
This book was not for me. The stories were not told in an interesting or insightful way. The shinning light was the poetry itself. While there were many overcited pieces like “The Road Not Taken”, there were other gems within its pages. I’ve added a few more collections to my TBR list from this book. However, the poetry analysis was disappointingly simplistic. Bialosky clumsily handles others’ words and rips the meaning from them. Her text pulls heavily from other sources, often relying on large quotations that are hardly relevant to the topic.
The book seemed indecisive about whether to tell Bialosky’s story or share poetry. Poetry is so personal and subjective. Forcing other’s words to find your own meaning and sharing the process came off as indulgent and unhelpful. Poetry can indeed save your life but we all have to find our own personal meaning within it.