"Maybe Today" by SK Williams is a heartfelt tribute to the journeys of growth and transformation that we all experience. The book's theme is based on the four seasons and their connection to our lives, using them as a metaphor to explore the challenges we face in life.

Williams' poetry reflects on the difficulties of growing pains, societal pressures, loneliness, and grief, but also offers a path of light and love to navigate through these challenges. The author draws inspiration from nature and uses gentle yet powerful words to convey that becoming the healthiest and happiest version of ourselves is not only possible but also worth the effort. The book serves as a reminder that sometimes we just need a little help to find the way.

The book is divided into four sections: "Fall," "Winter," "Spring," and "Summer," each reflecting a different stage in our lives that is both unique and relatable. In addition to the main voice of the book, the author adds annotations from a friend's perspective, representing the gentle, affirming perspective that we all need to hear from time to time.

Overall, "Maybe Today" is a beautifully written collection of poetry that will resonate with readers on a personal level. The book encourages us to embrace change, find hope in difficult situations, and appreciate the beauty of life, even during the toughest seasons. This book is recommended for anyone seeking a comforting and uplifting read that celebrates the human experience.

Thank you so much for the arc of this poetry collection. I loved that it was the joint effort of two friends, with the original marginalia responses of the first author's reading buddy's thoughts. I found this was a really creative way to engage with poetry. I also loved the beautiful art that accompanied the words. Thanks for a great read!

I really liked the content of the poems. A lot of them were super vulnerable and open. The illustrations on some of the pages were really beautiful too. However, my favorite part were the comments at the end of some of the poems. The comments were by a person super close to the author who knew the author super well. The comments showed an intimacy in their relationship that was super wholesome. It seems like this person supports the author unconditionally, which was so nice to see.

This is a beautiful collection of poetry with small illustrations throughout that being it to life. It is sectioned by seasons which is so perfect if you want to read these poems according to the present season and mood you are in. My favourite line is from the poem “Calm” because as a reader I really resonated with this line ; “If you cut me open,
you would find only words wrapped around scars, bookshelves carved out of my bones,
characters tiptoeing across my heartstrings”

Poetry isn't really my thing, but some of these were enjoyable. I think if you enjoy poetry more than I do, you'd get more out of it. But I do like trying to expand my horizons. I always feel like I want more from poetry collections, and I'm never sure if that's due to my ambivalence to the medium or to the quality of poems, or both.

Maybe Today by S. K. Williams is an illustrated collection of poetry divided into four sections - each of them represents one season, so there's spring, summer, autumn, and winter. It uses the themes of all the seasons in the writing to talk about things like life, love, mental health, growth, body image, self-love and so much more.

The tone goes from light to heavy but it has hope woven through most of the poems, which I always appreciate when reading poetry. There are also illustrations throughout the book, and while they're very simple, they make the settings in the book feel more vivid, and the seasonal themes more clear.

The writing is nice, and some of the lines resonated with me, but something about this book felt distant to me. I just couldn't ever fully connect with the poems and the meaning behind them, so it felt flat, and it was difficult for me to get through which is normally not the case with poetry.

Another part to the book is comments from someone who represents a close friend. Those are little comments on some of the poems, written right under it, offering encouraging words. I personally really didn't like this part to the book. While it's a nice thought, it was really distracting so I ended up skipping over them because it disrupted the flow of reading for me, and it didn't really feel genuine. It was quite basic comments that felt meaningless more often than not. Some people might like them, but for me, it would have been better without it.

So to sum things up, if you like illustrated poetry collections, themes of seasons and nature, and you are newer to poetry, I think this could work for you. I've read so many poetry collections that it just wasn't anything remarkable to me but it's not poorly written and some of the imagery is really well done.

"Please don't think this was a journey / I wanted to take. / Please don't glorify this pain." (166)

S.K. Williams returns with their sophomore poetry collection "Maybe Today" about grief and how to keep forging towards the light in difficult times.

In this unique collection, Williams writes poetry in a journal and then shares it with a close friend, who leaves annotations throughout. I was a bit uncertain when I opened this collection how I'd feel about the addition of notes from a third party - but wow, I really ended up loving the notes. They were affirmations that the grief and emotions in each piece were valid, but also a stark reminder that the world is sometimes harsh but feels less so if you have a trusted friend beside you.

I found myself loving a lot of these poems! It would simply be too much to list them all, but my favorite section was Fall. I felt like it was an incredibly powerful opening for this collection and the art throughout was both warm and comforting. The idea of watching a quiet love story play out in the notes section as the poet fell slowly in love with his friend (and now partner) was so beautiful and felt like a gift to read about.

Some of the poems did seem to drag for me, but they ebbed and flowed like mental health often does. This is a highly personal collection which I think might deter some readers who don't have a personal connection with how up and down mental health journeys can be. I will say, occasionally the notes were a little cheesy at the end of poems, or were more personal in nature, but I stand by the fact they felt more reaffirming and comforting over pedantic or childish.

Thank you to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for providing me a copy of this book for an honest review.

Content warnings for: grief, loss of a parent, alcoholism (from a parent), death of an animal, suicidal thoughts, mental health

Gloomy, melancholy poems about personal trauma and struggles, yet so exquisite and beautiful. I didn’t read it all at once for two reasons: it’s too depressing to digest in one take, and to beautiful to properly feel in one sitting. And I suggest you do the same and take your time reading it.

I usually don’t enjoy the personal poems that no one else would understand or care about other than the people involved, no matter how beautiful it was. But here, what helped was the way those personal stories are presented: Mostly, it’s not vague, it does focus on the feelings more than the actual experience, it didn’t give much details about the incident itself, it’s more about how they felt then and now. and that’s why it’s more easy to relate to and feel like you’ve been through similar situations; yet it’s not the situation you’ve been through, it’s the feeling. don’t we all go through sadness, loneliness, grief and other similar emotions? and here it’s portrayed very well you just can’t not feel it.

There are some red lines that are responses from K to S’s poem or vice versa, Most of the time those lines felt cheesy, but love and care can be cheesy sometimes and that’s okay. But sometimes the lines isn’t in the same level, tone or depth of the poem itself, it feels ridiculously wrong and inappropriate even when it’s within good intentions.

3.75/5

TW for suicidal ideation, grief/loss of a parent

Maybe Today is a poetry collection divided into four sections, one for each season. During the fall, the poems have melancholy tones, with the theme circling around feeling stuck on the outside and on not being happy despite doing everything “right.” ‘Good Kid’ addresses this, wondering when happiness is supposed to come when you’ve already done everything you were “supposed to do.” The author is clearly tired in these poems, and the combination of exhaustion with the overwhelming desire to be good enough makes these poems resonate with me.

In the winter, the author talks about feeling scraped empty. The emotional state mimics the outside world, cold and dying and hollowed out. Loss and grief are discussed here, with a look at how grief will sneak up on you out of nowhere. There are poems about self-loathing and considering ending one’s own life. This section felt like hibernating while wanting to wake up. It was the hardest to read, but also hit the hardest.

Spring brings with it renewal and time for healing. There is not an immediate shift in tone, but a gradual one, which I appreciated. The author gradually becomes hopeful, with Maybe Todays and Self-Reminders. This continues into the summer, which has uplifting reminders and coming to terms with various relationships. The author is finally comfortable in their own skin and role in life.

The journey from feeling stuck on the outside to self-acceptance over the course of the four seasons was a slow but rewarding one. I enjoyed all of the emotions tackled in this, many of which were complex and hard to name. My only complaint is that the little “notes” written in did not add anything to it for me. I would have preferred just the poems on their own. Other than that, this was an excellent collection of poems that I will definitely revisit, especially when I need a reminder that things will be okay.


Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for the advanced copy. All thoughts are my own.

A poetry book that was quite touching and motivating. the poems written bring out different nuances. Melancholy, sadness, hope and passion color the emotions in each poem. The notes added made me easier to understand the content of the poems, so that I felt immersed in each of the wordplay.

I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into when I started reading this. I thought it would be easy, nice, surface level kind of poetry that was lovely in the moment, but I was completely, dead wrong.

I found myself crying on my lunch break, having to take a minute, put my phone down to deal with the emotions that were brought up within me. Some of these felt like they were taken from my own life and my own relationships.

These are not easy poems. These are not nice and surface level poems. These are raw, real, stabbing truthful poems that do exactly what they were created to do: make you realize you’re not alone in how you feel.

I greatly thank NetGalley and SK Willams for allowing me the honor of reading this as an ARC. These were hard to read, which is said they would be, but necessary.

If you’re going through a hard time, take this with you. Cry with it and allow it to see you in your hurt because you are not doing it alone.

I enjoyed this poetry a lot - it was so reflective of things in my own life that it gave me a lot to think about. I liked the layout and the watercolor additions to the pages.
I wasn't so keen on the notes at the end of some pages, for me it seemed to ruin the authenticity of the emotions.

This poetry collection consists of journal-like entries in four chapters named after the seasons. Starting with Fall and ending with Summer this book follows the emotional journey of the author through depression, loss, heartbreak, growing pains and recovery. Every chapter starts with a beautiful illustration and the poems have very vivid imagery. The poems are written in a straightforward free verse with no hidden meanings and include annotations of the author's friend which are very supportive and kind. The mentioned topics are quite personal and specific to the author which takes away some relatability and it overall reads more like a journal or diary than an actual poem collection. I personally did not enjoy the Winter chapter because the individual entries consisted of a lot of self loathing and repeated topics that made it not interesting to read and awkward at times. The different seasons nicely portray the journey of the author and how they managed to grow from their experiences.
This is an overall easy read and a good entry in today's modern poetry if you like the works by Rupi Kaur and other similar writers.

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 "How was I to know
that it was the only way
we would ever know each other-
from across the tracks-

Always heading in the same direction
but never on the same train?"

I haven't read a poetry book in so long so this was such a lovely change. The four seasons aspect was really nice to read as you could definitely feel the change in feeling between autumn and summer. However, to me, I really couldn't tell much of a difference between Autumn and Spring at all and it felt as if it had rather all blurred into one. That's not to say that I didn't like these sections, and they were extremely reminiscent of feelings of loneliness and endings. Spring was where I could start to feel the change in the poems as it was more about new beginnings and summer felt like a continuation of this and was more of a conclusion to the cycle.

There was an evident motif of grief throughout. I didn't like it at the start as autumn and winter felt very similar however when it came to Summer I'm very glad it was there, as if the grief is always lingering. That was possibly my favourite part of the book. That and the poem under the name "Maybe Today", when you read it you'll understand as it shows the growth throughout the seasons. Oh, and the cover. The cover is gorgeous. There's also a poem about half way through which is about the authors life and struggles throughout his life. It was only then when I read this that a lot of the poems made sense to me as the majority were very personal and anecdotal to the author's experience.

The one aspect I'm not too sure about is the notes at the end of some of the poems, that we're sort of uplifting messages. The sentiment was nice but some of them I found to be slightly uncomfortable to read as at the end of a really heartfelt poem it would say something like "I'm so sorry"- which I am sure is great for the author to hear and have that support, but when reading it some of them didn't make too much sense to me.

I do recommend this book if you're looking for a melancholic poetry book integrated with a lot of the authors personal experiences. Thank you netgalley for the arc!

This was delightful. I loved this slightly different take on a poetry collection. Seeing the relationship between two people evolve and the words of the poet were both beautiful and relatable. Thoroughly enjoyed.

I have little experience with reviewing poetry but I found the prose to be absolutely beautiful. These poems seemed very personal and very experience based and allowed use a glimpse into the authors mind. This is a beautiful and evocative piece. I particularly enjoyed the imagery of bookshelves carved out of bones. I feel that this section explored the idea of words characters and stories becoming a part of a persons very being.

My only critique would be that I am unsure why the author chose to split the collection into four parts based not he seasons as there was no shift of tone or style throughout that made this decision clear.

Me llegaron bastante los poemas, me gustó mucho la separación y lo que trataba cada uno.
10/10 en la edición.

This is the first book of poems I've read in a long time. I love the cover so much!

I really enjoyed the relatable, heartfelt poems inside. It is nice to know others are experiencing life similarly to you but through a different lens.

Highly recommend if you want to be hit right in the feels.

Actual rating 2.5/5 stars.

"If you cut me open,

You would find only words
wrapped around scars,

Bookshelves
carved out of bones,

Characters
tiptoeing across my heartstrings,
voyaging through my veins,
and digging deep within me
in search of buried treasure.

They have built a home within me,
welcoming refugees
from our cruel world."

This collection of poems was split into four parts, relating to each of the four seasons. I saw limited alteration, at first, in the style or theme of poetry featuring throughout each of these sections and wonder why the poet sought to split them as such. The collection begun in Autumn and the poems were bleak in nature, so too in Winter and largely the same in Spring.

The poems were very personal, relating to the author's personal struggles and past tragedies. I find I relate more to poems that deal with universal themes and feelings rather than personal anecdotes, but that is merely my preference and understand many others who pick this anthology up will find this an illuminating volume, rather than one lacking in what I had been personally looking for.

Many of the poems were beautiful however, and these were, for me, the ones that focused on natural imagery and the changing of the seasons. I wish there had been more of these. The others felt exhaustingly sorrowful. The only source of illumination, throughout much of this, came from the annotations that were included alongside many of the poems. These were addressed to 'Friend', the poet, but I am unsure if they were supposed to come from the poet's present self, addressing his past self as he spoke of his historic struggles, or from an actual other individual. Either way, I found their optimism a little cheesy rather than uplifting as it opposed the poems' tone so resolutely.

4/5
Simply love this little gem that i have found. The words touch you so deep and makes sense. This book has all the emotions, manifestations and phases of life. It's simply beautiful. Loved how it's been divided in chapters as season of life also the artworks to depict it.
Must read !!!!