Redheaded Jill

I am not one who understands poetry. Growing up I never appreciated poetry. The Old Testament is split up into books of law, history, poetry, major and minor prophets. There are whole sections of the Bible that I struggled with because… poetry!

It was recently pointed out to me that the original writings of the Bible were in a different language. It’s not that poetry isn’t beautiful, but a literal translation from Hebrew or Greek to English isn’t always as flowery and pretty as it is in the original language.

I also watch a lot of Korean and Chinese dramas. In period dramas there is almost always a scene where they have some type of competition based on writing a poem. I never understand the cleverness of the writer because it is translated from a language in which it makes total sense to English.

To be fair, I don’t understand a lot of the poetry that is written in English. But I feel slightly less silly about not understand or finding beautiful the things that are translated to English.

My friend sent me a book called… The Apricot Memoirs by Tess Guinery.

It is a darling little book of poetry and prose. It is whimsical and lovely and feminine and just having on my coffee table brings me immense joy. It is me dipping my toes into the sea of poetry without trying to figure out iambic pentameter or foreign languages. 10/10 would recommend.

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