Poetic Insights

Title: The Day is Ready for you

Author: Alison Malee

Genre: Poetry

Waterstones

I had mixed feelings on The Day is Ready for you, the second collection of poetry by Alison Malee. When I first read the book I struggled to connect with the poems, on the second reading I begun to appreciate the way in which Malee constructs her sentences. She writes with lowercase letters, as well as with the lines spaced, so it felt more intimate. It was that intimacy that made me start to connect with the poems, and enjoy the book. There was a feeling in the poetry of alienation, of not belonging. The questions Malee was asking based on the environment, and the experiences, of the narrator. The love poems gave me the sense the narrator believes love is for the few, and that they don’t believe they are one of those few. I liked the writing was whimsical too at some points, and I liked a lot of the metaphors that were used. I loved the title of this book too, which I interpreted as The Day is Ready for you: You are Ready for the Day.

Concept: we are becoming dull with age
I tell you about the raspberries and you tell me
We are too old to believe in magic

I ask, is it growing up that leaves us empty?

A good, decent sized, poetry collection that will give you nuggets of wonder, and goosebumps, and joy, and nostalgia.

Did you know?

The Day is Ready for you is published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. They have also published poetry by Lang Leav, Amanda Lovelace and Alicia Cook.

Alison Malee has written another book, titled This is the Journey.