This was a great poetry book but I am not sure it being written by a male author about women sits right. I was really hesitant to review this book, especially seeing a lot of controversy about this author on social media.

A nice collection of thoughts. Whether an old fan or new, this book will draw you in and make you think about the world and life in a new way.

I still like his poetry because it’s quick to get through and that I can relate to them but it’s the 4th one of his poetry collection that I’m reading and I feel like it’s starting to get a little repetitive

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Not sure if it’s oversaturation or if I’m not reading his latest works in the right headspace, but I feel like a little of the magic has been lost.

My r.h. Sin saga continues. After reading A Beautiful Composition of Broken, things went even more downhill when it came to this particular collection. It started off well enough, with short but sweet, impactful poetry. Each poem had the nice flow and depth that he has always showed, and the way he words everything is beautiful. There were even a few poems that touched on very different topics than the rest—some of the most powerful ones being about his own experiences with other types of love than romantic. However, every other poem was exactly the same as what he usually writes, thus making it feel like all of his collections are identical.

This time around, the style of short but powerful lines did not work in his favor. Many of the poems felt incredibly choppy and forced, like he had cut off each line at random rather than with a specific purpose. There was a sizable loss of depth due to the way that was carried out. Another strike against the collection for me that ties into this was how much subtlety he lacked when it came to conveying the messages in certain parts of his work. This stripped away anything poetic about those poems and, therefore, they lost their emotional impact. This is entirely personal, but some even felt rather crude to me.

Once again, he remains stuck on pretty much the same topic for the entire collection, each poem feeling like a differently worded version of the others. And while his focus on the strength of women is nice to see in literature, he simultaneously portrays men as being horrible and himself as being the only one worthy of being with a woman. I appreciate the feminism he is trying for and, of course, love the fact that it is becoming more prevalent in the literary world. But what I in general will never appreciate is anything that lifts any group of people higher than another—that is not what feminism is about or how equality is achieved.

Overall, the majority of this collection unfortunately failed to accomplish what I believe he was trying to. Speaking as a woman, sometimes his poems are affirming, but after awhile, I began to feel like he was treating us like we are possessions rather than humans. I believe Sin has a talent for writing beautiful poetry, but that does not come across as well when he refuses to diversify his subject matter. The few poems that touched on love that isn’t romantic were wonderful and refreshing. In the future, it would be great to see him focus more on that, even aspects of his life and more personal experiences.

While I LOVE the fact that there is a resurgence of poetry because of what is called "instagram poets" there can be a slight disconnect for me due to how small the individual poems can be. Each one needs to be taken in with one glance, with a single east to read instagram post.

I'm a fan, for sure. Most "instagram poets" making waves seem to be female, so a male prespective (and especially a black male perspective) is brilliant.
I will definitely reread his work

This is my first R.H. Sin book, so I did not know what to expect going into it. I picked this up because I have heard amazing things about this authors work.

This collection of poetry is heavily focused on abusive relationships and past loves. I have never been in an abusive relationship, so I can not say if the poems were portraying it in a harmful way, but I liked all the poems in here. The book is over 250+ pages long, and I felt it getting repetitive towards the end. I don't think it needed to be that long. I also wish that there would have been more subjects. Some poems I related to and loved. But when I'm looking at the book as a whole, I felt that most of the poems were just ok. I do however really enjoy the writing and will most likely pick up more from this author.

I would recommend this book if you find the synopsis interesting.

I feel similarly to this book as I do his others books - kind of kitschy, tumblr/instagram-esque poems. I like this volume better than some of his other books but not as much as the Whiskey Words volumes.

I still prefer the shorter poems to the longer poems, but they start to feel repetitive, all his books/poems are about love, heartbreak, male-feminism, slut-shaming etc. and he skits too far over the line into preachy and annoying more than I'd really like. The second person that pops up in some poems makes it feel like he's telling a woman how to act/feel in some cases - which is like, the opposite of the message he's saying which is ironic. His poems are kind of like horoscopes - general enough that most people can relate if they want to. The poems about family life, single mothers, miscarriages etc. were probably the best of them. The titular poem at the end is one of the best of his poem period.

Still enjoyable if you like these sorts of poetry books, definitely if you like RH Sin, and pretty well written.

It was my first time ever reading any r.h Sin work. I am not expert in poems, I have only recently got into the genre, but I consider this to be a great collection of poems. Having said that, it was difficult for me to relate or in some sense understand the pian behind the worlds since I have never been heartbroken, and the great majority of the poems were about heartbreak. The only few that were not I really enjoy and I could see them inspiring me in some way. There are people that do not enjoy those types of poems, so if you are one of those then I do not recommend this book. If yes, the pick this up. The writing is not that complex and hard to understand. The simplicity of it was one of the main reasons I enjoyed it so much. I look forward to reading other works of him and compare them, see which ones I enjoy more, etc.

This was my 6th time reading one of r.h. Sins poetry collections and while there were a few poems that touched me, I just couldn't get over the repetitiveness. He keeps putting out all these books but the majority of his work is the same thing stated over and over again with different phrasing.

R.H Sin has become my favourite instapoet. He has the ability to read and understand women so well. Every line of every poem speaks true, and each line can almost be used as a manifesto for all women. This book is as strong as all of his others.

Insightful! Another emotive collection of poetry! As before, I find that these can as easily describe the heartbreak of love as the shattered belief that white folx see the humanity in people of colour.

I am in a good place in my relationship but I felt empowered that if it ends I am confident I would survive it when I read this book. I have never heard of r.h. Sin before I read this collection of poems… I will buy all his works from now on. And I want the physical ones. They need to be on my shelf. A greater number of the poems in this book are for broken hearts. Even so, some of them can be connected with life in general.Can you please place your trust in me and get a copy of this book? You will enjoy consuming every word in each poem. Just do it.

This poetry style is not one of my favorites, mostly due to the preponderance of the minimalist poetry trend recently. I did enjoy this book, and the poems were evocative and held my interest. I have never read this author previously, but I would read more of their work.

I’m trying to understand the fascination behind this whole contemporary, free-style poetry thing.

Throughout high school and college, I developed a fondness for poetry, particularly the classic works of Shakespeare, John Donne, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allen Poe, Maya Angelou, and Robert Frost. Once I was taught how to analyze poetry and understand what it was telling me, I learned to have a deep respect of poets in general because they accomplish such feats with words I don’t think I could ever manage myself. Rhyme scheme, meter, rhythm–the thought of trying to master all of this on top of language is daunting, but there are people who exist who accomplish it, and that is both stunning and humbling to me.

(That’s not even getting into those who can achieve epic poetry the likes of The Faerie Queen by Edmund Spenser. Those people are gods, and I live in fear and awe of them.)

Free verse poetry isn’t exactly new on the scene; even poets like Walt Whitman and Christina Rosetti composed some of their works in free verse, which possesses its own merits. But if Planting Gardens in Graves is any indication, I’m wondering what those merits are.

Let me make one final point before I delve into this book. Above all, poetry is deeply personal–for all of us. No two people are going to agree exactly on which poems they do or don’t like; everyone is going to feel differently and find different meanings about the words they read, and everyone is going to find themselves struck speechless by one poem, only to wonder what the big deal is about another.

In this latest volume, R. H. Sin is still writing the feminist poetry he is famous for, focusing on toxic relationships (mostly romantic ones) and imparting self-worth. Planting Gardens in Graves is actually my first volume of his I’ve ever read in full, but I decided to read it because I’ve seen some of his poems floating around the internet and I’ve liked them.

However, I’m thinking now I like them on an individual, case-by-case basis. Planting Gardens in Graves started out alright, but the more I read, the more I wondered what I was getting out of it. Most of the poems are so short–mere sentences, really–with no rhyme or meter, looking like it took maybe a minute or two tops to write each one.

I knew that was how it would be going in, so I already had some skepticism about whether or not this was “real” poetry. Ugh, that makes me sound like an elitist jerk, but I think you know what I mean. It’s hard to compare, say, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas to one of these mini poems of R. H. Sin’s and not have an obvious bias of which one took more time and effort and does more for you.

It wasn’t all bad, though. Many of Sin’s poems talked about the ins and outs of relationships. How people stay in them, knowing all they’re getting is pain, but the unknown of being alone is too scary to contemplate. How some people find the strength to leave for something better. How some people don’t, but it’s important to acknowledge their self-worth anyway.

Loneliness, heartache, frustration, hope, pain, healing, fatigue–I went through a whole spectrum of emotion when it came to romantic relationships and the sometimes bad ones we find ourselves in. Before long, however, they all began to repeat themselves and sounded exactly alike.

I wish there had been a little more variety of the kind of relationships Sin was talking about because there was so much of it I couldn’t relate to on a personal level. But I’m an anomaly on the whole romantic relationship thing, and I acknowledge that. I know there are many people who would resonate with these poems to the depths of their souls and find validation in them.

Throughout the volume, Sin talks to his fellow men a lot about how to treat women. He talks about his own heartaches and slip-ups. He talks about women, too. I read many poems about women and their strengths, their brokenness, their fights, and their sacrifices

But all too often, I got a strange feeling. I know Sin is writing these poems to give back to the women in his life who inspired him through the years, and I want to take that at face value. Many times, though, I wondered. Why is he speaking for women so much? Why is he speaking to women so much, like he’s offering valuable insider knowledge on the male psyche and how men are going to treat women if women don’t guard against them? Sin, my guy…

We know.

It didn’t happen at first, but soon I started to get some “nice guy” vibes from some of his poems, and I really wasn’t here for it.

There are some good finds here, but you have to wade through a lot to find them. I often had to stop reading, not because I was letting the poems sink in, but because I was reading too many that dealt with the same messages and subjects without any great deviation with the language he used. At the end of the day, very few if any have stuck with me. I won’t carry these poems around like I do “Invictus” by William Earnest Henley or “A Poison Tree” by William Blake.

Planting Gardens in Graves hasn’t totally turned me off from Sin’s other works nor from contemporary free verse as a whole. I do want to give another of his volumes a try, and I want to read these types of poems from a few female poets like Amanda Lovelace and Rupi Kaur.

But I still very much need to be convinced. Are these works poetry, or are they sentences that look like poetry because someone hit enter a lot?

This book appealed to me in small doses. It is a lot like the poetry that I write for myself. A lot of "trigger" topics and I don't think that puts one in a good place if you are beyond those times and start looking on these short pieces as advice. I would be interested in seeing how these type of lines would be incorporated into a novel. .

I like Sin’s style of minimalist poems that pack a punch and while this book certainly contained ones I felt strongly about, it also became repetitive. This is better read in multiple short sessions but because I read it in one sitting, a lot of the poems started sounding the same. Sin touched on themes many readers could relate to. There’s love, heartbreak, abuse, feminism, and loneliness to name a few but I’d love to see him explore other themes in the future.

I found R.H. Sin on Instagram and liked some of the poems he shares on there. So of course when I saw this on Netgalley, I wanted to read it. Unfortunately, I was left feeling incredibly disappointed. What first struck me about this collection is that often the way the stanzas are broken up are jarring. It interrupted the flow of them, but not in a way that came across as meaningful to me.

I also found that the language R.H. Sin uses sometimes was offputting. The imagery he created with some crude words and phrases came across as ugly. The topics he was discussing were ugly, but to see some of the same rude words again and again in his poems was frankly unsettling.

He covers topics from love, sexism, grief, and depression. I liked only a few of the poems. Reminders For Men, To Serve and Protect, We Do Not, and Either Way are some of the ones that stood out to me. I felt the messages in those poems were conveyed well and covered important topics. There’s one where Sin tells men to stop judging women, and to stop expecting things from women because women owe men nothing. There’s also one about racist cops.

My issue, however, is that this collection is pitched as including poems which “empowers its readers to seek the love they deserve”. A lot of the poems about finding the love you deserve seem to be directed at women. In fact, there are numerous poems which seem to judge and advise women about how to handle abusive or toxic relationships. I cannot tell you how angry it made me. One poem is about a girl whose mom was abused by her dad. The poem ends by saying that the girl is just like her mother. What a cold way to talk about abuse. The other poems about abuse urge the women to leave the men who abuse them. There's so much wrong with that statement because women often stay out of fear or begin to think they deserve the abuse, etc.

He also gives advice about what daughters should be taught by their mothers. Let me repeat this: Sin tells readers that daughters need to be taught the games men will play to get what they want so they know how to guard themselves. 1) Girls are constantly told what men will say and do to get in their pants. 2) Sin, why didn’t you write a poem about sons being told to treat girls with respect? By this point, I lost my patience for the book. Sin directs many of his poems about sexism towards women like it’s our job to guard ourselves rather than men’s job to stop their problematic behaviour. It seems like Sin was trying to discuss sexism to show how woke he is. He’s placed himself as a knowledgeable person who thinks he can give women’s issues a voice with his large audience. But if this is the kind of thing he’s going to be saying to his audience, I’d prefer he didn’t write poems about that topic at all. If you want to read good poetry about sexism and feminism, go read books by the many talented female poets.

"Planting Gardens In Graves" is a disappointing book. It boasts that it’s empowering, but I’m here to tell you it isn’t. I was a fan of his work from Instagram, but after reading this book I’m left feeling sad. The bad aspects of this poetry collection outweigh the good ones.

This is my first time reading r. h. sin but I’ve heard the name a lot and a co-worker has highly suggested him in the past and she hasn’t led me wrong yet in poetry suggestions. Planting Gardens in Graves is modern poetry at its best. Sin looks at both how relationships can be good but also in the ways that relationships are ugly. I appreciated the approach of not all love is great, not all love is healthy, and sometimes you can do better than what you have. Would definitely recommend to modern poetry fans,