If you, like me, approach poetry with intimidation, this collection of poems will make you fall in love with poetry hard and fast. I LOVED this book, Koleka's words are just beautiful and her peoms succeed in communicating so much in so few words. As with poetry, a lot falls in between the lines for us to fill in with our own lived experiences, thought and feelings and there is a welcome open-endedness which I hope will encourage educators to pick this book for book clubs/readers clubs. I found it extremely thought provoking and would have loved to sit down with young people and break these poems down from their point of view. The themes Putuma touches upon are very real, raw and relatable I think and I would try and convince any young person to have a read through these poems (the beautiful illustrations will also take a lot of pressure off reluctant readers I think). Overall, brilliant, I massively enjoyed it and devoured it in one sitting (but revisited lods afterwards). We need more voices like these to showcase the brilliance of poetry for young readers.

This was an enjoyable read but nothing majorly stuck with me - I think perhaps a younger me, at a different point in my life may have got more from it and when this finds it's audience it will soar.

We Have Everything We Need To Start again is a modern, fresh and energetic collection of poetry - I LOVE how Koleka utilises white space (Sea Legs!).
Adriana Bellet's careful, line illustrations work wonderfully throughout.
A pacy, energetic and thoughtful collection with poems addressing identity & body image to politics & social media. Need to get a paper copy when it comes out!

Wow, what a book. Fresh, poignant, and powerful. A collection of poems that speaks directly to the readers of today and a voice that uplifts and empowers.

Was this the book to try and discover poetry with? Probably not, there are quite a few poems that stuck with me such as Coming Out, Home, Raw, Sea Legs & Boundaries but overall, I don’t think this was for me.

I know poetry can be very personal, in a way fiction books necessarily aren’t so I am sure there will be many that these poems have a much bigger impact on.

Entirely my misunderstanding but I didn’t realise the target audience was teens. I imagine the tone would resonate more with those younger folk, but even so think the poetry rather simplistic and ineffective