I have a certain love-hate relationship with poetry, meaning I like reading it but I cannot write it to save my life. So as I continue my education in creative writing, I have made myself take a spin at poetry, and what better way other than to read some poetry as you learn?
One of my first choices was the book "adultolescence" by Gabbie Hanna. If you do not know who Gabbie Hanna is, she is best know as @thegabbieshow on Vine (RIP) and on YouTube. Gabbie is known to be a comedian and vlogger on YouTube. Just recently, she published her very first poetry book "adultolescence" on September 19, 2017. I have been a fan of hers for quite some time now and decided this is how I will pop my head into poetry.
At first, I was a bit skeptical about this decision because it seemed like just another YouTuber book. So when I received the book, I quickly skimmed through the book to notice the self-drawn art to go along with her poems. From my experience in poems, I never see a lot of them go with drawings, but like I said I don't have much experience with it. The more I read the book the more I noticed the different style of poetry. She uses text spellings and doesn't capitalize certain things that should be and, although others might think how incorrect that is, I believe the way she went about using the words in that way made it more real and you can see her voice in this type of writing.
In my personal opinion, I feel like you get to know who she is as a person and how, behind the comedian front she has on YouTube, really see her fears and insecurities that she faces with. As a writer myself, I love nothing more than to spill my soul out on paper and that's exactly what Gabbie Hanna has done. I didn't know this style existed and now I really want to base my work on something like this. I suggest for the beginner that wants to explore different poetry that this is a great choice. It is different, it is real, it is beautifully tragic. It shows what it feels like to be an adult and kid at the same time. She has the relatability and humor to make herself a great poet. If you love dark humor, lyrical poetry, and deep and dark work, this is the poetry book for you. It’s not one of those uptight find the meaning poetry books that you learn about in your English class but something that you read and understand because you can relate so much.
Three top poems:
