Book review: Sticky Notes by Indy Yelich

Sticky Notes by Indy Yelich
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Links: Amazon • Goodreads
Publication Date: February 14, 2018
Source: Daniel sent this to me because he is the actual best.

‘sticky notes’ is the first book of poetry by emerging poet, indy yelich, who was born to a poet mother and is the sister of pop artist, Lorde. She currently lives independently as a 19 year old in New York City. This debut collection chronicles her experiences with love, travel, and self-discovery in a shifting physical and emotional geography.

If you’ve been following my blog and reading my tags and Weekly Updates, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that I’m a Lorde fan. I listen to her music pretty incessantly, but I didn’t actually know that much about her or her family. I knew that she had a sister, but I honestly never really paid that much attention. Well, now I’ve read Indy’s first poetry collection and I. Am. Conflicted.

Like, okay, there’s one poem. It’s called the kitchen bench and I’m not sure why I relate to it so much, but I do.

[…]

the clock is a prison sentence
all i have left are the memories
that haunt me in my shower

crosslegged
eating cereal

wondering why it tastes
so off

Why does this take me right back to a very specific time in my life? It’s almost creepy how easily it transported me back to approximately 2010 when I was in my first studio apartment and very sad about everything in general.

There are also a couple lines in a poem called hero that I particularly enjoyed:

i think you were placed in the wrong era
because you don’t go outside and you eat books
like sandwiches

Literally me, okay? LITERALLY ME.

But then there are some other poems, or should I say “poems,” that are just sentences with line breaks. One example is central park:

i just want to
sit in the park
a little while longer

That’s it. That’s the poem. I mean, accurate statement, I have literally never been in Central Park without thinking, “oh hey, wouldn’t it be nice to stay here a little bit longer” but here’s a “poem” from me:

sentences
with line breaks
aren’t poetry 🙄

I actually had a lot of thoughts about a lot of poems in this collection, but I think that this will suffice for the review. I mean, I probably shouldn’t copy down every poem in the collection and give my reactions to it. That might be considered, oh, I don’t know, a violation of the copyright or something.

In short:

• I went into this without any real expectations and walked away feeling pretty conflicted.
• IT’S NOT TERRIBLE by any means, but it’s also not really amazing.
• Some of the poems take me right back to how I felt when I was Indy’s age! That’s great and shows a lot of talent!
• Other poems are just not relatable at all — even as a grown adult working a full-time job, I can’t even come close to affording a studio apartment next to Washington Square.
• I’m curious about what Indy will write next.

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Have you read Sticky Notes? Do you follow Indy on social media?
Let’s talk in the comments!

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