There are stars glittering
inside you
that have never been
handled.

It is no surprise that Nikita Gill, Instagram poetry sensation, has released a collection of poetry focused on female empowerment. Gill is recognized for her short, powerful poetry that liken women to wolves, storms, and protective anger against the forces that seek to harm and destroy us. Wilder Embers has poetry for the mind and body, giving readers powerful verses about self-love and breaking the chains we've been locked into. The poems are fairly short and quick, the longest being about the Princesses of fairy tales. I really enjoyed the poems about witches, magic, and mythology. I might have cried a bit in the "chapter" that references wolves hidden in your soul. They were so powerful and so true, talking of the strength a woman finds to question the trauma and darkness they've endured. That's my kind of poetry. It's inspiring and empowering, the kind of rebellious poetry you want to read instead of those poems about being sick for love.

We carry witchcraft in our
bones
whilst the magic still sings
inside our heads.

Wild Embers is a poetry novel that has something for every emotion you may be feeling. You can pick it up, flip to a page and read something that speaks to you, that moves you, that really means something for you. Reading it all in order though? That is something I don't suggest doing. It gets repetitive, especially when a couple of the poems sound identical or like extensions of one another. I wish some of the first poems, especially those centered around space, would have been dispersed through out the book.

Take everything that
tries to destroy you
curse you,
and turn it
into something beautiful
by incantation.

Ultimately, I really enjoyed Wild Embers. It is a powerful self-care focused collection of poems that are all about strength as a female, healing, inspiration, and breaking the molds of time-honored expectations that can be found in fairy tales.

I absolutely loved the writing and the subject of this collection. Nikita Gill is one of my favourite modern poets, this is the second book I read from her and I have to say that her writihng improved very much. Her poems also had more substance and the fact that she included a section where she speaks of fairy-tales and how they are toxic to our society, how we should recreate them to create more feminist narratives is amazing!!

I don’t know about you, but I mostly loved fairy-tales because of how magical they seemed, how everyone got what they wished for in the end. I never stopped and thought as a child about how problematic they are, how girls seem to be there only to get a man, be submissive, give up on their families and their hobbies and everything else just to marry off to someone who might never see them as equals. (We’re not going to include Mulan in here because she’s a badass queen and not Anastasia either).

Also, there’s another section on goddesses and wow!!! So much mythology appreciation, so much Artemis & Athena worshipping and Zeus bashing because Hera really should have dropped his cheating, abusive ass. Nikita Gill was very creative while doing this collection. It feels like a love letter to every woman, teaching us how to lose ties with people that only seem to harm us, showing us role-models, showing us what are some harmful concepts that keep us from growing up.

I was pretty blown away by Wild Embers and I totally recommend you to read it!!! Please do it because I don’t think you’d regret the choice (especially if you’re a feminist).

If I could, I would give this collection 6 stars.

In the last couple of years, I have been trying to expand my reading outwards. NetGalley has been a great way to try out some things that I might not have read otherwise.

One area that I've been working on is poetry. I've read several collections, some of which did not work for me, and some did to varying degrees.

Wild Embers falls into the category of not just working for me, but blowing me away. In fact, by the time I was a quarter of the way through the collection, I had bought Nikita Gill's previous collection. By the time I was half-way through, I knew I was going to be buying a copy when the book hit the stores last week. And when it did hit the stores, I bought three copies: one for myself, and two that will be going into Christmas gifts for the two teenaged girls on my list.

The poems were beautiful. They mostly had a feminist bent, but will great imagery. The first section had poems interpreting life through astronomy. There was a section that had different takes on fairy tale characters, done as prose examinations instead of standard poetry. Another section similarly looked at women of Greek mythology.

This was the first poetry collection I've read since my first Mary Oliver collection that made me sit back and say 'yesssss'.

Seriously, though, I want to rave about this collection to every woman I know, and strangers on the bus. I want to buy a stack of copies and give them to everyone who will take one. I can't wait to see what Nikita Gill does next.

This collection missed its mark with me. Please don't discard it based on those words. I am curious to pick this up at a later date when my mood is different, but right now it was not what I needed.

Wild Embers
by Nikita Gill
Hachette Books

Poetry
Pub Date 14 Nov 2017

I am reviewing a copy of Wild Embers through Hachette Books and Netgalley:
Wild Embers is a collection of poetry dealing with everything from womanhood, to mental illness. This book deals with everything from trauma to broken hearts.
Wild Embers is a powerful collection of poetry, dealing with the tougher times in life.
I give Wild Embers five out of five stars!
Happy Reading!

So I decided to take a chance on this book of poetry because a previous co-worker of mine had brought up the author's name before, and she has been my go to for new poetry to try. Not disappointed. Loved it so much, I’ve got 2 Christmas presents taken care of now because of this book.
This book is beautiful. The nerd in me appreciates the allusion to space and the stars. The reader in me loved the fairy tale trope spin-offs, and retellings, especially the mythology.
This book is beautiful and delightful.

This book was incredible! Her writing is beautiful and deep. I would highly recommend to fans of poetry

Yes. This is a wonderful collection of poetry and prose, providing guidance on strength, healing, and resilience. I particularly enjoyed the rewritten fairy tales and mythology, encouragement for self care and finding power in healing. I will revisit this collection as it resonated strongly with me and provides hope.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Poignant, powerful, overflowing with emotion and honesty. This is a fantastic collection of poetry.

I am considering gifting this collection to everyone for Christmas.

I love Nikita Gill's ideas and her passion and intensity, but I really wish the writing was better. The beauty of poetry is what can be done with small amounts of beautiful language, but Gill's "Wild Embers" seems like all "telling" and no "showing." I want to be moved by the words on the page as well as the ideas behind them.

Nikita Gill's anthology of poems seemed to reach inside me and awaken a fire that I have forced to stay dormant for far too long; somehow, the words on the page encouraged me to heal the long-buried pain that I didn’t want to acknowledge I needed to heal. Each section of the book, divided into seven “themes,” seemed to find a way to a way of touching the soul and invoking strength, tears, weakness, vulnerabilities, and desire to storm the world to take back what has been slowly chipped away. I think there is something within her words to touch on a plethora of topics (trauma, self-care, feminism, parenting…just to name a few) for numerous readers.
I cried, I felt inspired, certain poems were thought-provoking, and others seemed to be exactly what I needed to minute the words leaped off the page. I do not often seek out anthologies of poetry, and this was my first experience reading Gill's poetry; I do not think it will not be my last.
Thank you, NetGalley and Hachette digital for the ARC of this work in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This collection of poetry initially explored the theme of beauty but gradually progressed to the fire and rebellion for which I requested this ARC, culminating in explosions of brilliance!

Poetry is a finicky thing. Maybe this just isn't the type of poetry for me, but if this is the current state of the poetry world, then I'll probably stay away for a while. It was the same type of wannabe-Sylvia Plath babbling that you read ten times a day on tumblr.