Nobody Told Me: Poetry and Parenthood by Hollie McNishMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Was handed this book for work, ostensibly because I like poetry. I was excited till I read the opening blurb - this was about a new mum and her journey. Crikey! How wrong an audience I was for this book.
McNish mixes memoir with poems charting the moment she found out she was expecting, through to her child being three years old. That's a lot to pack into a single novel. Despite its length, this book is a quick and easy read.
Most poems start with an intro - some long, others short - recounting an incident or incidents that led to her writing it. The trouble is, most of what is written in prose is restated in the poem, which negates the need for one or the other.
There are a few poems thrown in without context, and they feel... out of place. What the book needed was a firm editor. At the outset the author mentions that her poems have not been edited - well, that's not how a book should be published. No matter how personal the story, readability is important. And in this case, some of the poems felt superfluous because we had already been told what the issue was. Some of the poems were also too long, harping on about the same thing while not moving the story forward.
As someone who knows and cares not for parenting, I cannot comment on what kind of parents the author and her partner are. They seem to have most things going well for them - putting in their own efforts to make life as easy as possible. Her partner is extremely supportive, which was a pleasure to read. In fact, I felt like he could have been even more involved. It's important to know that people out there can share parenting responsibilities and not begrudge each other much. Especially given England's hideous way of looking at gender (this issue isn't only confined to England, but has gained prominence and has snowballed into a royal mess) it is important to see that some measure of equality can still be found for some people.
The author also touches on several global issues that come into focus when she is about to become a mother - including the effect of war and conflict on women and mothers. She writes a few poems regarding the same topic, rescinding her own complaints in line with what these women must suffer. She's not overly hard on herself for wallowing in occasional misery, yet has a holistic enough view of the world to give the other side a thought.
She also has to deal with racism. Only part way through the book did it dawn on me that her partner is black; and she deals with some of the issues that he faces on a daily basis.
Again, the trouble is, most of this information is handed out to us in the form of regular prose; we don't interpret it through her poetry. It is such a mixed bag, that I'm surprised her editors didn't decide to tighten it up a fair bit. It reads much like a bunch of diary entries, which would be all right if there wasn't poetry thrown into the mix.
Had each chapter started with an intro and then delved into the subject in detail through the poems, it may have been a better read.
Her free verse poems were inconsistent, sometimes difficult to get into for sheer lack of rhythm. It's her style, perhaps, so I can't knock it. It just made it difficult to read. I'm sure when she's performing them, she knows exactly when to pause. These poems are not meant to be read, but heard, I suppose.
While I may be the wrong audience for this book, it gets a very optimistic message across. There's an air of happiness and joy surrounding the incidents recounted, even the ones that get you riled up because old British courtesy appears to have gone out of the proverbial window, and it's nice to read something happy once in a while.
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