I was working on a display for our Adult Reading Challenge the other day, and I came across a poetry collection called Life of the Party by Olivia Gatwood. The cover immediately caught my attention. You can probably see why. The smear of paint covering a woman’s face immediately draws you in, calling to mind notions of erasure and dehumanization perhaps. As something of a true crime aficionado, I was also intrigued by Gatwood’s exploration of the controversial topic. The true crime genre is ripe for discussion, moral or otherwise. The author’s note details a period of her life when she experienced insomnia because of a specific fear that she would become a victim herself, the subject of a true crime story. She interrogates the intentions or agenda of the genre, questioning why certain stories are told instead of others. The complex relationship a lot of women have with true crime, as avid viewers and readers, is briefly yet powerfully illuminated. The poems in the collection continue that theme. Concise stanzas of powerful imagery and analogy, revealing formative experiences in her childhood that have had an impact on who Gatwood is today. I wanted to write about poetry for this blog entry because I believe it’s an efficient way to absorb a lot of meaning from a small amount of text. So, if you find yourself a busy library worker like myself, you can pick up and put down a poetry collection whenever you have a free moment. Finishing a poem feels like a small amount of closure each time, and closure is nothing to scoff at. Here are some of the other exciting collections I’ve come across in our catalogue. To be honest, I am in the process of reading several of them. I have assembled a salad — if you will — of different poetic ingredients, and I am grazing to my heart’s content. Here’s hoping there’s one that strikes your fancy. Like a juicy heirloom tomato in the summer.
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As art forms go, poetry is probably one of the most misunderstood. When you think of poetry, what comes to mind? Boring, incomprehensible gibberish? Maybe. Particularly with older versions, it’s almost impossible to appreciate without someone guiding you through it. But poetry is one of the oldest methods of artistic expression—think of Gilgamesh, an ancient Mesopotamian poem and the oldest known surviving piece of literature— and it’s still around, so it must be doing something right. April is National Poetry Month, so to honour this literary practice I want to share some current poets who might make you change your mind about poetry, and show how you can get into it yourself!