Dylan Geick - Early Works

Dylan Geick - Early Works

2017, self-published through Blurb

Linkki suomenkieliseen arvosteluun

I'm so overjoyed by the fact that I'm finally able to write a review of Early Works by Dylan Geick. This collection has been on my to-read-list for so long that I thought now would be a good time to order it and get more into poetry as well. I admit that I'm not the biggest fan of poetry itself but I do enjoy reading poems from time to time. I think that reviewing this specific piece will allow me to get to know poetry better as a form of literature. Because I'm so unfamiliar with this type of literature I won't be analyzing the poems, this will be more like a general review of the book itself and how I felt about it. And once again I'm sorry if this text seems a little bit of or has typos or other grammar issues, English is not my first language. And by the way, you can order your copy of Early works from Blurb through this link.

Many of you probably haven't heard of Dylan Geick before which is why I feel that I'm allowed to write a little background information about him before we start with the book. Geick is one of the only social media influencers that I follow on social media (besides Geick's boyfriend Jackson Krecioch and the king of social media, Shane Dawson). He was only 18 years old when he self-published this piece of work, back when he was just moving to New York. Now he is studying creative writing at Columbia University while being university wrestler as well.

The main reason why I wanted to get this book for myself was that I felt let down by the poetry collection Milk and Honey. It was just not my thing and I couldn't get my head around the fact that so many people loved it. I felt like I needed to read something else before I give up on poetry. While I was thinking about a collection, I remembered Early Works and decided that it was finally time to read it and write an actual review on it too.

Okay, now I'm once again babbling around, let us get back to the actual subject of this post. Early Works is a collection of 12 poems which was self-published through a website called Blurb. The collection is described the following way on the back of the book: "these poems are a look into his [Dylan's] early experiences with love and loss, an introspective coming of age tale told in verse." In my opinion, that describes the collection perfectly.

When I first started reading the collection I didn't expect much. I was hoping it would be a good piece of work but that's about it. However, after reading the first three poems (Cookies, Dearth, and Graveyard) I was in awe. I would never have thought that only couple lines of writing could be so touching. Whilst I think about other poems (the few I have read) I don't recall any of them bringing up feelings this strong. It was somewhat weird to actually be able to place myself in the same situations.

The elements of surprise didn't fade away when I continued reading the next day. Geick succeeded in transforming the feelings to the reader through his text which is a skill that not everyone has. In addition, I would like to point out couple specific poems that I saw as the pearls of the whole collection. All of them were astonishingly good but there is always couple pieces that strike off. 

Stars and Smoke is the first one of the two. When I was reading it, I sat on our veranda covered in blankets in the middle of the night warm cup of coffee in my hands. For some reason, I could not sleep that night which led to a whole night of reading, and I'm glad it did. Reading this poem brought back so many memories and feelings from a specific time of my life. Noct is the second one, I'll not talk about it more because I think that everyone should read that on their own but I can say that it touched me, but not in a sad way this time.

I feel like I need to add my Goodreads updates here which were not the best but I think these sufficiently sum up my feelings through the reading process. 

As I write the ending of this post I realize how cheesy I sound in the previous paragraphs which is why I feel the need to add a little explanation here before giving the final so-called grade to this book. I'm that type of person who gets easily touched by words, and some poems just hit the right spot. In this collection, Geick did a great job capturing me into the moment with his words. His poems were something we don't see very often. Each One I've Ever Made Love To was one of the most personal and private texts I've read, I think that it takes a lot of courage to publish something like that. I doff my hat in awe to Dylan and his work and cannot wait for more.

I don't give 5-star ratings very lightly but I absolutely think that Early Works deserves each one of these starts. In my opinion, supporting new authors is important especially when we are talking about young people publishing their own work and being proud of it!

If you want to get your copy of Early Works, you can order it through this link.

Also, you can find Dylan Geick on Instagram @dylangeick

 Feel free to comment your thoughts on this book down below! What did you like about it and what didn't you?