A review by crystalisreading
Where Hope Comes From: Poems of Resilience, Healing and Light by Nikita Gill

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing slow-paced

5.0

I'm embarrassed that a book that gave me so much hope and comfort during a dark time could also take me so very long to review. I wanted to shout my appreciation for Where Hope Comes From by Nikita Gill from the rooftops, but perhaps for fear of not doing it justice, or because most of my mental energy was focused on adulting while surviving each day of a global pandemic, and didn't leave much energy for writing/ creating on my own, or some other combination of factors, I did not. Instead, I read this book, slowly, in the evenings before I fell asleep, cherishing each gentle, hopeful poem, relating to so many of them. I'm not a poetry connoisseur, but I found the poems in this collection lovely as well as relatable, full of imagery of nature and the human heart and the impact of life-changing events on individual humans. What do the giant patterns of civilization and pandemics imprint upon humans in general, and specifically on individual humans? What does it mean to stay indoors? To hope against hope to survive, and to see one's loved ones survive? To struggle with loss, and broken relationships while also being grateful for our own continued existence?

I love Where Hope Comes From so much that I immediately preordered a copy, and it is now a cherished part of my library, with pages dog-eared and highlighted, from Nikita Gill's reflective forward, to Reasons to Live Through the Apocalypse to A Reminder from Smaller Beings to How to Be Happy Again. But perhaps the poem which resonates with me the most is simply titled It's 2020:

"And everyone I know is on the verge
of breaking down.
Or has broken down.
Or has felt more tragedies

than the cosmos truly intends
for a person to feel.
And it's hard to say
This too shall pass,

Because we don't know if it will.
None of the clichés work.
Not while the world
stands still.

All we can do is pray.
All we can do is not blame each other.
And wish we had enjoyed one another
a little longer the last time we were together.

What is left but
to promise that when we next meet,
we will be kinder.
And fight for a better future together."

So I am enduringly grateful that #NetGalley and Hachette granted me a temporary digital advanced copy of #WhereHopeComesFrom that I could cherish and find comfort in during these continued pandemic years. I cannot recommend this highly enough. I had never heard of Nikita Gill, or her Instagram poetry account, prior to requesting this book, but now I am going to seek out all her work, both published and online, and hope you will do the same. 
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