Review: Depression & Other Magic Tricks by Sabrina Benaim || Poetry

Title: Depression & Other Magic Tricks
Author: Sabrina Benaim
Genre: Poetry
Page Count and Format: 96 pages, Ebook
Published: August 18th, 2017 by Button Poetry
Source: I received a digital copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
My Rating:

Blurb (from Goodreads):

Depression & Other Magic Tricks is the debut book by Sabrina Benaim, one of the most-viewed performance poets of all time, whose poem “Explaining My Depression to My Mother” has become a cultural phenomenon with over 50,000,000 views. Depression & Other Magic Tricks explores themes of mental health, love, and family. It is a documentation of struggle and triumph, a celebration of daily life and of living. Benaim’s wit, empathy, and gift for language produce a work of endless wonder.

First of all, reviewing poetry books are hard because I always find myself clueless on where to begin with…

Anyway, let’s try.

I had pretty high expectations for this book after reading a few reviews, although this book didn’t disappoint totally but it didn’t manage to touch my heart either. This collection discusses themes related to mental health, family, relationships, and self-care.

As much as I didn’t fall in love with this book, there were some parts which I could totally relate to. Especially the one- “Explaining My Depression to My Mother“. It took my mother more than 6 months to understand, or at least comprehend some of it and it took me more than 6 months to gather the courage to get help, so this poem did hit hard home.

if I am holding you without hands,
how am i supposed to let go?
(gravity speaks)

But there were some poems which were rather confusing. I also didn’t know that she did slam poetry, listening to her (link given above) felt like a totally different experience than reading this book and I understood that it was that particular emotion I felt lacking while reading this book. Hearing her was a rather powerful and wow experience which I didn’t exactly feel while reading this.

Anyway, my favourite poems from this collection including the above were the loneliest sweet potato, dear Beyonce (I), how to fold a memory, unrequited in nine acts among the few.