I'm not a great fan of poetry, but I did enjoy some of the poems in this collection. Especially the themes of self-awareness and reconciliation really connected with me.

This collection of poems was lovely. Very easy to dip in and out of and the pictures would make it great for a coffee table.

There were a mix of short and long poems with drawings throughout. I liked the introductions to each section and enjoyed the collection.

I would recommend.

Thank you for the arc.

“This book is a laboratory of poetic experiments in the alchemy of life. While we all hope for a brighter world, it can be difficult to see how to navigate through the raging storms. I have to believe we are the creators of the world we see each day and that the stillness that can be felt in the wake of every storm holds the key to the map of all change. A map that can be drawn only by your own hand. How do we change the world? We change ourselves.”

Valerie June Hockett is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist from Tennessee. She’s been hailed by the New York Times as one of America’s “most intriguing, fully formed, new talents”. She has recorded two critically acclaimed solo albums and has also written songs for legendary artists, such as Mavis Staples and the Blind Boys of Alabama. When she’s not touring, she splits her time between Tennesse and New York.

‘Maps for the Modern World’, Hockett’s debut collection, is made up of five parts: ‘Consciousness & Awareness’; ‘Journeys & Dreams’; ‘Lamentations & Transformations’; ‘Earth & Other Worlds’, and ‘Mindfulness, Mantras & Meditations’. She has written interesting introductions to each part of the collection and has illustrated the pages with colourful, quirky drawings, which add to the volume’s attractiveness.

The collection’s themes include cultivating community, awareness and harmony with our surroundings as we move fearlessly forward towards our dreams.

Hockett does not perceive the world the way most people do. She is an old soul who radiates light. ‘Maps for the Modern World’ is
accessible and heartfelt, but it is who she is, what she does, and what she knows, that are more important than anything else. I see great things ahead for her.

A huge thank you to @NetGalley and @AndrewsMcMeel for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

“This book is a laboratory of poetic experiments in the alchemy of life. While we all hope for a brighter world, it can be difficult to see how to navigate through the raging storms. I have to believe we are the creators of the world we see each day and that the stillness that can be felt in the wake of every storm holds the key to the map of all change. A map that can be drawn only by your own hand.”- from the Foreword of Maps of the Modern World

Maps for the Modern World is a wonderful poetry collection for me to have read at the beginning of National Poetry Month. When I saw the bright cover, sun/compass illustration, and Valerie June’s name, I knew that I had to read it.

As I write this review, I’m listening to/watching Valerie June’s KEXP performance, and she radiates warmth through the screen. I think that she was able to cultivate that sense of warmth within this collection as well. I will say that her style of poetry isn’t a style that I naturally gravitate towards. It is a kind of poetry that I don’t know the name for, but I’ll just call it abstraction poetry (think Rupi Kaur & Lang Leav). The sort of poetry that is focused on these big concepts like love, life, sadness, triumph, but tries to be more direct in what it wants the reader to take away rather than making use of poetic devices. I think that this sort of poetry resonates with a lot of people who find that poetry is too stuffy and purposefully inaccessible. Maps for the Modern World is filled to the brim with abstractions and is sometimes a little bit woo-woo in a way that reminds me of reading a Dr. Bronner’s castile soap bottle, but perhaps those are the reasons that I adore this collection.

In the acknowledgements, Hockett mentions that she started writing poetry everyday after the death of her father. So it makes sense that many of these poems are about the transformative nature of death and endings, about death being final but also being a transfer of energy. She also explores agency. There is a whole poem about how our civic duty does not end at the ballot box, how our civic responsibilities cannot be passed onto politicians. She writes about periods, pads, and tampons. She writes about God and spirituality but doesn’t proselytize. Her poetry is so different from, yet so similar to her music.

My favorite part about this collection is that she writes about her experiences as a Black woman in some of these poems, and there are little doodles throughout of a figure with kinky, free-flowing hair. I love that these poems are representations (though not always directly) of Black womanhood that is rife with kindness, gentleness, quirkiness, occasional light vulgarity—Black womanhood that is ever working towards compassionate justice, committed to mindfulness and the natural world, and always open to exploring uncharted depths no matter what others may think.

There are benefits to both the physical text (with its many adorable doodles and to see the words and line breaks on the page) and the audio (because Valerie June has the coolest Tennessee accent and a beautiful voice).

All in all, there are so many pieces from this collection that resonate with me: “Responsibilities After Voting,” “A Goddess Mantra (To Be Repeated),” “Spirit’s Spell,” “Ode to Fuckin’ Feelin’,” and “Comfortably” particularly stood out. This collection is like a warm mug of tea the way that it radiates warmth and suggests being present for the moment at hand, being mindful.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for providing me with an ARC and the opportunity to read this lovely collection in exchange for an honest review.

I'm a big fan of poetry, especially the ones published by Andrew McMeel. This work didn't hit home for me, but it was still very beautiful and uplifting. It spoke many truths that I could relate to. Every poet's voice is unique and I fell in love with the prose that Hockett wrote at the beginning of each section. I think I enjoy poetry that's lyrical and that flows in a particular way which is why the prose really hit home for me, the poems themselves, many of them wee constructed in such a way that they were abrupt. This was just the writing style of the author, but for me as a reader, abrupt writing takes me out of the rhythm. Again, Hockett probably meant to do this on purpose to truly think about and understand the topics she was writing on, it just wasn't my cup of tea. I would still recommend to pick this work up and support BIPOC authors as much as possible.

This book was sent to me as an ARC on NetGalley. However all opinions are of my own.
I loved how this Poetry book was split into sections. It felt a lot more organised.
I love reading poetry as I find it easy to relate to and I felt that with this book.

"Maps for the Modern World'' is a book that can be appreciated by a specific audience in a specific mood. For people who tend to not like the form of modern poetry this much - and, partially, I'm one of them - this might not be the poetry collection for you.
Personally, I'm not sure I'd categorize this entire book as poetry. Some of it definitely was, but a lot of this was two-line quotes that, however beautiful, I don't think qualify as poetry to me. Also there was a lot of "space bar poetry", aka sentences separated by space bars so they look like poems.

However, even though I wouldn't consider a big part of this book as poetry, I still found this collection of gorgeous quotes very nice. The essence of it emphasized on self-empowerment, self-love and trying to take control over how you look at the sadness around you in order to enjoy life more. It was very spiritual, positive and optimistic and it felt like a self-help book with all the empowering quotes! I'd recommend it if you want to read something that will make you feel happy and inspired to have trust in life and yourself!

Also, the book comes with gorgeous little sketches/drawings that I thought were super cute and aesthetic!

Listening to this on audiobook as well, the author is narrating it herself, which made it super special! She narrates it with so much passion and love, you could tell from her voice and that made it even better!

This poetry book is just confusing to me. It is divided into 5 sections with each section having an introduction. I didn’t like the introductions. It felt like an ‘explanation’ for the poems to come, directing the reader how to feel almost. There are also decent illustrations, but some of them are just not it. They felt like a waste in all honesty and added no value to the poems.

This poetry collection reads more like hopeful, positive, motivational quotes from Instagram. And while that can be nice occasionally, having an entire collection of it just felt a bit overwhelming, especially as an audiobook. Some of the poems don’t have any substance. The poems just tell you what to do or how to feel rather than letting you dwell on them or evoking thoughts or emotions from the reader. Some poems felt lazy.
For example:
“All is but a dream.
Dreams are everything.
Every hard time
I’ve ever had
I dreamed my way out of it
-hope”
This poem leaves no room for the reader to think about it. There’s nothing to take away from it which in my opinion makes it lazy.

Some of the poems deliver the obvious. It felt like a waste as a result.
For example:
“By the time you get to where you are going
Everything you did will seem so small
You will realise that it has always just been
A series of tiny steps
— tiny steps”
This poem just conveys...the obvious. I don’t know how to explain it properly but it doesn’t add anything of new to the collection in my opinion.

Overall, I didn’t enjoy this collection, sadly.

I liked this collection but it was not my favorite.

I think my biggest issue with the collection is that I felt that nothing new was stated. I felt like a lot of the metaphors and similes were regurgitations of things I've read before.

There were a few I really liked in this collection, though. And those few made me overall like the collection.

This collection of poems was a relaxing and thought provoking read. I liked the chapter introductions and illustrations. The illustrations went well with the poems. Some of the poems felt more like quotes or sayings, but most of them had a good flow. My favourites were Every Stone and For You.

I recieved an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This one just wasn't for me. I liked that it was uplifting and positive, focused on fulfilling our potential as individuals and as a human species. But the poems were filled with that brand of woo spirituality that doesn't connect with me and in fact actively annoys me. That said, the poems were uplifting, and I've actually discovered the author's music through this - it's bluegrassy, soulful folk and I'm really enjoying it (check her out on Spotify as Valerie June).

Maps of the Modern World is a collection of poems that tackles about grief, acceptance, dreams etc. There some of poems that were at least inspirational and motivational however, to me, they were all seemed cut off and lacking.

I really wanted to give this one higher rating than what I gave but I just can't. I would not deny that there were some poems that really spoke and hit me but overall this books just seemed flat and way too vague for me.

I can see the intentions and the messages that the author is giving on some however, the writing style was the one who made it cut off for me.


*Thank you NetGally for letting me read and review this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for making this available..

I just could not get into this book. There were a few poems that I did like from it but other than that it just felt off. Some of them just felt like random rhyming poems made up on the spot. If you wanted to try out reading poetry I would probably recommend this, the little intros into each section of the book was nice but it also felt like it was telling how you were supposed to feel instead of discovering your own.

Even though there were some good poems or passages, this kind of poetry was not for me.
I can't quite explain why, since I can't figure out if it was too abstract or not at all.
It did not seem very fluid or cohesive to me, and I wasn't able to enjoy this style of writing.
I did, however, like the prose introductions to each of the themes in the book.

It's a decent poetry collection, one that is accessible for people who aren't avid readers or an intro to modern-day 'Instagram poetry'. I would say for the fans of Rupi Kaur, written with the same style: doodles with beautiful sentences.
However, it personally did nothing for me, nothing that I've never seen before, not particularly thought-provoking, but I would recommend it to people who don't usually like poetry and would want to enjoy a flip through a book with doodles and margins in them.
There were a couple of poems in there that did make me ask myself the question: Does this add anything to the piece? or could the work still be delivered without this poem?
Just like the piece titled "Goddess", it just felt like a waste of paper and space. Or it could just be me not evaluating the poems deep enough to see their significance.
With all that said, I then realised once I read to the ending of the book that the author is an acclaimed singer/songwriter, and that makes more sense.
Her poems rhyme, and have words put in there to make them sound more alive and beat-driven. So on that part, I think she did a good job.

Valerie June Hockett’s work is reflective and written in accessible language. Emotion, comfort, and moments captured in verse.

I have been busy discovering new poetry this year and most have delved with human relationships and emotions and various stages of them. However this collection is so different and easy to fall into, it flows at times slowly and deeply and others bubbles like a bubbling brook. It is full of advice to a great humanity and our interconnections regardless of our walks of life. It is both hopeful and optimistic for the future, but also reminds us that it is okay to be who we are and so is very peaceful and reassuring.

As a lot of current poetry books it also depicted a collection of clever drawings that added to the experience.

My personal favorite that strongly resonated with me was:

The wall was high
But I knew every stone
For I had built it
On my own

This is a book filled with beautiful, eye-catching illustrations to accompany the stunning prose. The book is broken up into different sections, including Consciousness & Awareness, Journey & Dreams, Lamentations & Transformation, Earth & other worlds, Mindfulness, Mantras & Meditations. I thought the illustrations were spare, yet elegant. The poems encourage the reader to take time to appreciate the beauty in the moment and be mindful of their self in relation to the world. Many of the poems were quite long- I typically prefer shorter poems, and feel that more emotion can be found with fewer words. Thanks to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel for the opportunity to read this title in exchange for an honest review.

A beautiful collection of poems. It really helps remind you to be mindful and appreciative of nature, and your surroundings. It was a quick read but I thoroughly enjoyed reading these and would definitely return to the book in future.

A collection of five parts beautiful poems, mostly about self-awareness and reconciliation. I loved it, it was very peaceful.
Consciousness & Awareness
Journey & Dreams (my favorite section)
Lamentations & Transformation
Earth & other worlds
Mindfulness, Mantras & Meditations

I also loved the illustrations with each poem.

The wall was high
But I knew every stone
For I had built it
On my own

Thanks to Netgalley, I have given an honest review of Maps for the Modern World by Valerie June Hockett.