Hollie McNish's poetry is raw, brutally honest and is always bang on point.

Plus is no different.

There was not a single poem that I was disappointed by and enjoyed the whole collection. I would fully recommend this book.

Review posted on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gb5WBi32Mxs

*Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.*

'Remember that not everyone gets to have grey hairs. Ever. It's a privilege you should not be moaning about. Dye it if you fancy. Just don't moan.'

Witty, humorous, and relatable, Hollie McNish's new collection Plum is a punchy exploration of adolescence, social expectations, friendship, and womanhood.

The anthology contains poems written by McNish when she was a child, teenager, and an adult, covering a wide variety of themes. At the beginning of nearly every poem, the poet notes how old she was when she wrote it and, as a result, the collection has a semblance of chronology, beginning with those written when she was young and ending with those written as an adult. This progression is also reflected in the topics of the poems, which range from young thoughts about the environment and nature, to teenage musings on sex and periods, and finally to a mother's perceptions of her daughter.

Each poem is named after a significant time in the poet's life, and these nuances really give us more understanding of her personality and growth as a woman. Her unashamed discussion of periods in extract from PMT is enjoyably frank:

'You can skip and wear pink and say 'ooh' as your twirl
What a f***ing great laugh it is being a girl

Each month without fail you get spotty and swollen
And you worry all day that a red blotch is showing'

Although this poem delivers significant clout, I felt it could have gone into more depth about sex education and teenage periods, and because we're only given a small extract, the full impact is lost. This is the same with other extracts, whose brevity hampers the complete meaning from being delivered.

The second half of the anthology is where its power lies. The style, words, and ideas all flow better in the poems McNish wrote when she was older. There's more cohesion and, cumulatively, the writing has a greater impact on the reader, delivering messages with punchy vivacity. Take, for example, NO BALL GAMES, which emphatically depicts the restrictions on teenage freedom:

'NO BALL GAMES' signs stuck up in their hordes
in parks, these signs all laugh the same,
'NO OVER 14s' - please go away!
no roundabouts, no swings, no slides,
you'll drink, you'll shag, you'll sit outside!

where teens ride roads, now metal poles
pop up in formal demon drones
'NO SKATEBOARDING', no wheels, no bikes
all public concrete set with spikes
still headlines cry  - obesity!
- computer games! - too much TV!

A simple but deceptively potent truth lies in McNish's words, that teens aren't welcome in parks and public spaces in the UK, because they're seen as a threat. 

Another poem that rings with truth is Beautiful:

As my friends sit once again chatting about how beautiful Victoria Beckham is
I wonder if they've ever stepped outside and looked at a flower
Or wiped the hatred from their own faces and looked in the mirror
At their own beautiful reflections

Poems such as these two are so powerful, that others fall flat in comparison. Mr Kent is mildly funny but bland, Teammates feels like half a story, missing key elements, and Politicians is dull. The form and rhyme schemes within each poem are often inconsistent (many are in free verse so the rhymes come and go), meaning a poem will start out rhythmically and lose pace half way through, stumbling to a close.

This collection is very much a tale of two halves; half the poems are written when the poet was younger, half when she was older, and half are poignant and striking, while the other half have potential but fail to deliver the same tour de force. Although it's mainly the poems written later that provide the forceful messages we're here to read, these two elements do not always intersect. Some of the early poems are as impressive as the later ones, but in different (less worldly, more gentle) ways. 

Plum is a thought-provoking anthology, and one that I want to thrust at men and say 'Read this; it'll be insightful for you'. But I do think I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't read it so soon after Kate Tempest's Hold Your Own. Tempest's poetry is so mind-blowingly dynamic and eloquent that any anthology I read after was (perhaps) always going to pale in comparison.

Hollie McNish is a young poet and spoken word artist who could bring me back into the world of poetry readers. This collection looks at subjects close to her heart - feminism, motherhood, the trials of adolescence - but also includes some poems she wrote as a very young child. To be fair I think her poems written at 8-10 years old are better than anything I could produce now and they have the charm of a youngster's view of the world as well as value as verse. Interestingly McNish is still young but one of the poems which spoke to me most strongly was one about grey hairs (and how so many never get to have them) - as Jo Cox said, we really do have more in common than that which divides us...

I may not become a real poetry reader again - prose fiction and non-fiction still has so many temptations for me and there continue to be only 24 hours in the day - but this book has reminded me that I do enjoy the genre. Which means I have loads to look forward to in this year's Bradford Literature Festival again...

I have mixed feelings about this book of poetry, and I think it's a bit of a generational thing. While I can appreciate her brilliance as a poet, I just don't understand or appreciate the content of her words. It was too rude and course for me, and as a result I feel it's unfair for to assign it any sort of star rating.

Thanks so much for allowing me to read it though, I sometimes need to get out of my rut of reading just what I'm used to!

Thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the ARC of this book.

I love love love Hollie McNish’s poetry. I thought that ‘Nobody Told Me‘ was an absolute masterpiece and I have really enjoyed reading ‘Plum’.

I love McNish’s point of view and wish my brain worked like hers. All her references resound with me and she perfectly puts into words thoughts and feeling I have had and makes me think more deeply about important issues. I love the train of feminism which runs through many of her poems and her poems on parenthood often bring me to tears. She is brilliant!

‘Plum’ is a collection of McNish’s poems cleverly interspersing current work with poems she wrote as a child and teenager. It’s a really thoughtful and entertaining read. I am so jealous that someone could be such a great poet aged 8!

I’d highly recommend this book to everyone.

I was hesitant about whether ‘Plum’ Would live up to the raw, emotional honesty of ‘Nobody Told Me’ which was one of the my books of 2016. If anything, though, I loved ‘Plum’ even more! As un-put-down-able as any thriller, McNish is fearless in offering us an insight into her self and I was both moved and amused throughout . I will be buying this for all my friends and recommending it widely.

Love Hollie McNish & her endearing, relatable honesty - she's done it again with Plum!

Another collection from one of my favourite voices, and this is as memorable and powerful as the book which introduced me to her work ( Cherry Pie - check it out if you haven't already). Hollie McNish is a woman with something to say, and a uniquely powerful way of saying it that appeals to the everyman ( or woman). Deeply personal, many of the poems in this book touch on moments in her life, that feel almost universal. Blunt, but never offensive, honest and often humorous ,and occasionally incredibly poignant, this is a book that belongs on many shelves and one that I will surely dip into numerous times.

Plum features poems by Hollie McNish about friendship, growing up, and adulthood. I loved this because it not only features her recent poems as an established poet but also some of the ones that she wrote when she was ten years old!

I also find it very empowering as a female. In one of her poems, she wrote about things she had to endure as a white woman with blond hair, and in another, she wrote about harassment from the opposite gender. In these poems, she is angry and demands her voice to be heard, not just because she is a female but because she is a human who deserves to be treated with respect like everyone else.

Her style of writing was what caught me, and kept me reading. I could almost imagine her on stage, hearing her voice in my head. Hollie definitely has presence. This is of course, not a surprise as she is also a spoken word artist. Readers who are familiar with it will certainly see the influence in seeping through the pages of Plum. I've never seen her perform, but upon finishing this, I will look her up on YouTube, that's for sure!

Gorgeous, funny, thoughtful, rude, honest. I loved this collection. I wish I'd read it slower but I couldn't help devouring the whole thing. I love Hollie Mcnish and could relate to these poems so well. I think a lot of us will be able to do so.