A Socially Acceptable Breakdown

A Socially Acceptable Breakdown - Patrick Roche

Genre: Poetry | LGBTQ+

Release Date: Expected 19th October 2021

Publisher: Button Poetry | Independently Published

I've been a longtime fan of Roches slam poetry, in fact most of the artists featured by Button Poetry have always been brilliant, so I had very high expectations picking up this collection and I was not disappointed.

A Socially Acceptable Breakdown is a journey through humanity - through our minds in it's darkest and most joyous places. Dealing with themes like mental illness, queerness, body image, families, loss, and even magic, each individual poem reached out and felt like it was addressing the reader directly in the most heartfelt and personal way.

The style was fluid and evolving throughout - this is not the type of poetry that is uniform and structured. From classic stanzas and short stories, jumping to harsh, disjointed and abrupt and then to almost dreamlike in places, each poem felt completely seperate from the others but still fit together perfectly.

Scattered with joyful references to pop culture; x-men, hocus pocus, Divine, and of course Carly Rae Jepsen - and full of other mentions of myth and magic that make you feel some level of familiarity with the words and appeal to the inner nerd in all of us. Full of witty wordplay and wickedly clever concepts, this is a refreshing and magical take on a difficult subject, one that manages to focus on the joy of recovery, the hope of a future, rather than trying to romanticise and stigmatize suffering people.

Some of my favourites were Icarus - an evocative, emotional short poem of couplets, 21 - a listed poem with a striking visual style and Self-Portrait as an Opossum which resonated somewhere deep in my tired soul. The most memorable may be 40 Seconds, a brutally honest, raw piece about the frequency and urgency of suicide in modern times - this was haunting beautiful, poignant and will be one I revisit often.

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

About The Author:

Patrick Roche is an award-winning poet, performer, mental health advocate and Carly Rae Jepsen enthusiast from New Jersey. Videos of Patrick's work have amassed over 9.5 million views on YouTube. Patrick has competed or been featured at multiple national and international competitions and festivals, including placing 3rd in the world at the 2016 Individual World Poetry Slam and 2nd in the 2017 Capturing Fire national queer slam. Patrick serves as an ambassador for the JED foundation, promoting mental and emotional health, suicide prevention and substance abuse awareness. His solo stage stage show and debuted in 2020 and he is the author of two other books.

Thank you to Patrick Roche and Button Poetry for this ARC in return for an honest review.

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