I very much enjoyed Sabrina Benaim's poems in this book and the development that happened as I turned the pages. It, of course, talks about depression and dealing with it, trying to explain it, and seriously just coping with it. But then it also goes into life around depression as well, triggers. Many of the poems are about dealing with a specific break up it seems where the boy in her mind just won't go away. She is glad/sad he's gone but always wanting him back, but unable to get him back. The progression of events was fantastic.
I was trying to explain to my grandmother how to read poetry to get its fullest meaning (read the sentence not the line break before you take a breath, read it a few times: the first to figure out what it says, the second to find further meaning, and a third to truly, simply enjoy the poem) and was actually having a hard time showing her how to read to the end of the sentence. Because there were hardly any of them in there. Quite a few of her poems were very long run on sentences were you, the reader, had to decide where to take a breath. There were many with "/" every few words that separated the fragments of sentences just enough for a feel of the line breaks without having line breaks.
The poem that really drew me to Sabrina Benaim though was her presentation of "Explaining Depression to My Mother, A Conversation." It was beautiful and shows how difficult it is for those who have depression to explain it to someone; someone who doesn't have it, doesn't get it, but is still trying--in their own way--to help. Below is her recitation of her beautiful poem.
Enjoy, like I do.
No comments:
Post a Comment