Atticus (1)

Man... I just don't get it. This guy is inspired by Whitman, Angelou, and Plath? There is nothing confessional or expansive about these poems. It's pretty surface level stuff. I won't knock short poems, or even simple poems. But it truly feels like there is no greater significance then what's advertised, and in a collection full of over a hundred short poems, half of them seem to be saying the exact same thing. It just seems to lack a level of artistic message.

I decided to read this because show more I want to consume a wide breadth of poetry, and Atticus is known as one of the most popular poets on social media. He's grown to fame by having digestible, easily sharable poems that fit nice on "aesthetic" graphics. He's anonymous (basically), and it makes sense why. His goal is to appeal to the casual reader by writing poems devoid of personal meaning. Instead of exposing his self to us, and asking us to draw a connection to him, he seeks no connection at all. It's all generic analogies about how a woman is a flower that must bloom before she can be plucked or something like that. Easily sharable, easily consumable, and apparently easily marketable. His page is well run- visually pleasing, much like the cover of this book. Beyond that, there isn't really any poetic merit here.

This isn't to say that his work is unethical or whatever; people enjoy it, and they should. But the purpose of this book seems to be to show your support for a social media page, not to actually bring together a meaningful collection of poems. My only real issue is that the guy pretends to be something he's not. It's a brand, so nameless and faceless it might as well be corporate. It works for what he's doing but it is so far removed from the personal rage of Maya Angelou that he shouldn't tie her name in with his work. show less

Normally I'm not one for poems but these were all so short and beautiful that I couldn't help but fall in love with the whole collection.

This is a fantastic book of poetry. I will admit poetry is not really my type of read, but this really grabbed my attention and I am so glad I picked up this book! First, it is so well put together that it invited me to keep reading. The drawings so well paced, the font chosen for different poems, the placement on the paper, the title.. it really made sense to me and I could see the importance even the parts that were not just the words.

The poetry itself, just amazing. I cannot imagine what show more the author went through to create this book. The story in the poetry is so beautiful and sad and so resilient. I took a picture of one in particular because it had so much meaning to me and I have it saved on my phone.

This is such a meaningful book. If you love poetry, I would highly suggest it. If poetry isn't your thing, I would still suggest it! If you have ever loved someone or ever been in a relationship, or ever want to be in a relationship, this has something for you. It was very thought-provoking to me and I have been left thinking about parts of it over and over and what it means to love someone.

This is an amazing book. show less

I've read a lot of poetry, read too much if I'll be honest, I've read comedy and haiku and stories in poetry form. I've read ballads and sonnets of poems, songs, limericks, so many things I've read. From Jack Frost to modern day black books with flowers and bees upon their covers. Some of it really resonates with me, little pieces of them that I repeat out loud.

This book is not one of those. It feels like each piece of it came from some cheesy song or was written for one person not the show more world. There's things like bridges with specific names, phrases like "skinny dippers" that come out of a country song. The mess of this book combines with the very stock-like images. They are flat, black and white or monochrome messes. None of it resonates a bit with anything.

I feel as though parts of this is single-liners from bad books or generic ones meant to be ignored and passed by. With phrases like "he was one of those bad boys" how can you not laugh? Which leads me to the real appeal of this book.

There's not really one.

But if you want to laugh, try reading these to friends or a big group, it gets better the more voices you do. Saying bad boys or reading the annotations really makes for a ride, and "Your sweater smells like you" in a creepy voice can make for a great time.

Don't buy this book, save your money, unless you want a real drinking game or to get buzzed and then read this. It's great for parties, but not for poetry lovers. show less