I’m a thoroughly obnoxious poetry lover, but I can’t stand sitting still for long enough to read Dickinson or Frost. Even though I can understand why some may view cryptic old English as poetry at its finest, my taste lends itself to much more modern pieces. Rupi Kaur and Ross Gay are a few of my personal favorites– you know, the people everybody thinks of when trying to remember names of modern poets– but when I discovered Beth May’s “The Immortal Soul Salvage Yard,” I was completely and entirely blown away.

I read the entire book in one sitting, and due to my poor attention span, this is a rare thing for me. I couldn’t put the book down. It was only about a hundred pages, but there were upwards of a dozen poems contained in the tiny paperback, covering topics from mental health to death to love. May hits especially hard on her experiences with bipolar disorder, and she covers the topic with finesse and grace, using often funny and exceptionally evocative language to do so. Unlike older poets I dislike so strongly, May’s writing is not cryptic– there are layers to her writing that make this book a lovely reread, but the language is simple enough to understand during the first readthrough as well. May is also an expert at establishing the tone of her pieces within the first few lines, and her spot-on word choice, above all else, makes this book a must-read for any poetry lover.

After reading “The Immortal Soul Salvage Yard” for the first time, I delved deeper into May’s body of work. While she has only released one book so far, she also has two spoken-word poetry albums on Spotify– both of which I listened to in their entirety. In these albums, May reads aloud some of the poems from her physical book, and I found listening to these words from the source to be an incredibly enriching experience. It’s clear that May is a talented spoken word artist, and the infrequent enjambment and arguably underutilized punctuation that occasionally irked me while reading her work translated quite well to an audio format. After listening to her content on Spotify (entitled “Sunday Scaries” and “Live in Long Beach”), I felt like I understood her book far better– for any potential future readers, I would highly recommend checking out May’s poetry albums as well as her book.

All in all, however, any critique I have about this book is trivial. May is a raw and powerful poet, and the wide variety of subject matter in “The Immortal Soul Salvage Yard” hit home in more ways than one. Take it from a certified poetry snob– this one is well worth the read. 

On this blog, members of the Carmel High School chapter of the Quill and Scroll International Honorary Society for High School Journalists (and the occasional guest writer) produce curations of all facets of popular culture, from TV shows to music to novels to technology. We hope our readers always leave with something new to muse over. Click here to read more from MUSE.