Scream by M.M. Crusinberry

This poetry book discusses how silence, worry, anxiety and overthinking everything you do or say develops over time making you feel like you're becoming a prisoner to yourself trapped in your own mind. The poem, A Quiet Storm, was really relatable to me about how anxiety clouds and storms your mind and makes you feel overwhelmed by even simple things at times as your mind races to every negative conclusion that could happen. Please Don't Leave Me, was a guterenching deeply emotional poem how anxiety can push away the people you love the most, a theme through the whole collection but most deeply felt in this poem I felt. A great look into how you can feel like you just want to in life, Scream.

The Bureau of The Betrayed by Skyla Springer

This poetry collection was both tender and cutting with beautiful rhyming poems and stanza's telling stories of relationships falling apart and the conclusion from the actions how it can leave you reeling, aching and feeling so deeply. Two stand out poems to me were easily: Love Unconditioned, reminds me of the song Softly by Alayna, about self love first before romantic love. The Fragile Wings Of Trust, about retrying after everything with an ex who cheated and moving on healing and thinking of a future trying with someone new not letting the past get to you so badly forever. A brilliant little poetry book that was so well written, highly recommend reading especially if you can relate to being cheated on sadly!

With Stars Louder Than Us by Shriya Sekhsaria

This poetry collection was a beautiful book summing up in a poetic sentence or two per poem, all that's needed to describe the scene and love in various scenarios letting us feel how the couple are together in little snippets of life entwined in the loving words written. The book was beautiful in it's design style too with a pink cloud design, simple illustrations and star themed focus on it's illustration design and the stars and constellations are used as a theme throughout the book too.

Emotions We Forgot To Name by Sameera Pinjari

Made up of ten short stories drawing on emotions in moments of daily life each short story ended with a reflection to sit with and make you think of a positive to carry with you forwards in life. My favourite of the collection was, The Stranger and The Strange Feeling, about meeting eyes, reading stories in that one glance like they really saw and what you're about, not just a fleeting look as you pass by how that one stranger can make you feel more seen in that moment than others in your life that even know you deeply. It was a great reflective book showing how each little moment and interaction can make you see things differently and deeply.

Ink And Embers by Taralyn Vaughn

This was a short beautiful poetry collection that spoke so tenderly yet deeply of love. If I Could, was a great poem summing up how we can question and overthink everything in life Please, was a very moving poem about falling in love with your best friend and the pull and desire to tell them and be brave enough to find the courage within to do so and seeing where it could lead. Two I Never Held, was a poem that took my breath away, tenderly talking of miscarriage, not explicitly stated but heavily so implied, I believe. A short but a beautiful deeply moving collection of poetry looking at life's highs in love and lows in life with loss and illness.

The Shit You Call Love by Rachel Louise Finn

This collection of poetry details how love can feel good, bad, in the depths of happiness or the depths of grief. Some stand out poems to me were: Cafe, about seeing others in love around you and how it can effect your mood and feelings. Love Missing, feeling like you've never felt love truly. Buried, how literal loss of someone you love and felt so deeply for can stay with you forever and grief linger. Texts Unanswered, the anxiety and worry of being unsure of another's feelings from silence stretching on. Bandaged Heart, how past hurt can linger and make you wary to fall for another again. The title was befitting for how you can feel more negative about love after a break up making you question your feelings and if it was even love how easily someone can seemingly leave, a brave collection facing raw feelings.

Sonnet to an embryo: poems for pregnancy loss by Dawn Apiarist

TW: This poetry collection focuses on the subject of miscarriage and baby loss. The collection opens with Star Carrier, a tender poem of the four children making the author a mum, even though none very sadly made it to life. Sky, was a simple tender poem of how it feels like the light leaves with each loss. Dissociation, about how the days feel heavy and blur together in the aftermath of such tender loss. It wasn't really, about how crushing people can make it sound when the life, the baby was never birthed, yet they did exist and were growing, becoming a real living baby. The sadness, the questioning for no answers to be unveiled and so relatable to me being the same age to experience it too as the author. The final poem of the book simply titled Poetry, was a beautiful finish to the book and honesty, it was a read that captured the pain of miscarriage. The collection is tender and raw with the emotions that you encounter and are forced to feel and embrace to work through when facing baby loss.

Again, I Cry by Shaylah Lathon-bey

This poetry collection focuses on all topics of what we can face and be affected by in life from love, loss, worth, self, consent, friendship and as the title says, can all induce tears from feeling so deeply. Some stand out poems to me are: Wounds Are Memories and My Sadness, were two poems about the weight of pain and wanting to feel ligher and free from it. The Girl With The Saddest Story, was a poem I really related to especially about self love first without looking for it from anywhere or anyone else. Not Rage, But Armor, was again a relatable poem about deflecting people from getting cloae to your sadness by anger to protect yourself and push them away, a coping mechanism I think many of us can relate to feeling to prevent breaking at times. Wrong Woman, was a really relatable poem about being the wrong person for someone and accepting that you are better apart than not loved truly. It was a beautiful collection of poems covering most aspects of issues we will or someone we know, will face in life.

The Butterfly Project by ANR

This collection of poetry draws on people's experiences with their mental health and the struggles of feelings and actions they've had to face too. Some stand out poems to me were: Silence, about feeling numb to life and open to the idea of death after feeling so deeply sad. Fourteen, was a harrowing poem of the side effects of bullying and self harm at the tender age of 14. Focussing on themes of sadness, depression, anxiety, friendship, abandonment, loneliness, self reflection and hate, it's a dark but open discussion collection of poetry to make you sit and reflect, or relate to and feel less alone in your own struggles, past or present.

Almost Winter, Almost Hope: Poetry about feeling alone by S. Avery

This poetry collection captures the beauty of dark and light in the seasons in particular, the winter and how Christmas can feel lonely and hopful at the same time in different way for different reasons. Some fantastic poems which stood out to me were: First Frost, about the world slowing down forcibly by the first bad weather stretching. Hollow songs, in particular how overplayed the same Christmas songs can be to leave you indifferent to them anymore. Three chairs, is a poem that hits deeply about the echo of loss at dinner especially so at Christmas. December Silence, about feeling everything, the weight of the unsaid lingering between family. Wish List, was a beautiful poem of the real gifts being feelings and are not easily brought gifts wrapped. Short Days, about the fragility of daylight in winter. Holiday Bruises, about how the holiday can linger and leave painful reminders of how the season has changed. It is a beautiful collection of poetry and makes you see the winter and festive season in a new light from different perspectives of hope, joy, grief, love and healing.