I Wrote This For You is a collaborative photography and prose project. (Almost) every day, the photographer sends the writer a new photograph from wherever he is in the world. The writer creates a poem or short piece of prose inspired by the photograph and focused on whoever might be reading the work, or "you." The writer and the photographer have never met.

I remember clearly when this collection was first released. I had just graduated high school and so many people were hyped for this book. Me.. I never read it. I was on a interesting path when it came to my reading and this never showed up on it until recently. 

There is a lot of good within this collection but at the same time there is a lot of redundancy. This made it hard for me to fully enjoy and connect to what I was reading. Reviewing poetry, for me at least, is pretty hard because it is an emotion based reading, which is why I read it again and that redundancy was still there. 

Despite that, there are some serious powerful lines within this collection that I have marked for future references such as:

Don't stop searching.
There is no comfort in giving up. 
There are large parts of you that don't exist yet. The greatest you you could be, is still waiting to be found. Get up and look. 
And this:

Nowhere on your body and nowhere on the Earth is it written: You were made to suffer. 
Those lines with that intensity was found through the collection but words began to blur together and read in the same voice. I guess ultimately this wasn't written for me (I'm so funny) but I recommend this collection because I know that it is for someone. 

2 Pickles

Sitting here for the last few minutes, trying to figure out how to best put into words how much I loved this book.

This book, the collection of photographs and poems, is just too beautiful for words. So many of these poems tugged on every one of my heartstrings, made me feel all the things and made me really think. I love this. I seriously don't know how people can do that, make you feel all the things with just a few lines.

I highlightes so many of these poems that I wanna re-read whenever I need them. But also, overall, this is one of those books, that I wanna re-read a few times as a whole, cause it's so beautiful.

Having had some time to think about this, I feel like this style of poems/quotes works better and has greater impact when each is viewed alone. If you read one quoted somewhere online, then it can seem quite deep and profound and steeped in beautiful truth. But when you sit and read through pages and pages of the same, it feels cheesy and contrived. At least, it does to me.

Imagine you're on a date and the other person says you're beautiful (or the equivalent). At first, that seems really nice and you probably get all warm and tingly inside. But if they don't stop, if they continue on and on by saying: "You are the most beautiful person I have ever seen. Your eyes are like the deepest ocean. Your hair is like liquid chocolate." I mean, pass me the bucket. Also, I no longer believe a single word they say.

That's kinda how these books of poetry make me feel.

I would have liked this much more during my teenage emo phase. Nowadays, it seems cliche and extremely emotionally manipulative. And emotionally manipulative books are those that leave me feeling most emotionless of all. It's slightly better written, but I would recommend this for fans of the modern tumblr quote-style poetry - think Lang Leav, Rupi Kaur and/or Amanda Lovelace.

This is an interesting collection of poetry and art. There is a little of something for everyone in here.