Admittedly, I am the first to roll my eyes and scoff at literature of the ‘don’t worry, be happy’ genre. There is nothing more vexing than being told to calm down during moments of intense anxiety. For that reason, I typically steer clear of any media that encourages us to ‘cheer up.’
That being said, Victoria Hutchins’ “Make Believe: Poems for Hoping Again” represents a clear exception to this rule. It is the honesty and brutality with which Hutchins writes that transforms this poetry collection from one of toxic positivity to one of unwavering hope.
The book’s epigraph reads as its thesis statement: “For the child you are at heart, who still believes in magic.” Childlike wonder radiates off of every page of this collection. Hutchins transitions from epigraph to the book’s titular opening prose, with “how to play make believe.” Here, we imagine befriending the eight-year-old versions of ourselves. We build a bedsheet fortress, reflect on change, “make a pinky promise to stay friends forever and try to actually keep it.”
“Make Believe” is not your typical poetry collection because it is not made up exclusively of poetry. Its poetry reads narratively, while its prose is poetic. “go seek,” from the book’s opening section, is a second-person demand to cherish time. Similarly, “sugarcoat” tells us to “Let eight be eight/ Let twelve be twelve.” It is an echo of Morgan Harper Nichols’ “Let July be July” and an ode to the younger sibling within us all who is always rushing to grow up.
Throughout the book’s five distinct sections, Hutchins seamlessly blends narrative styles and ultimately produces a documentation of progress. That is the greatest strength of this collection – not its staunch optimism, but rather its ability to acknowledge how wavering reality truly is.
“I don’t know how to stop turning myself into the shade of woman that matches my room,” Hutchins declares mid-way through the story.
But Hutchins is not glued to a chronicle of childhood nostalgia. In fact, the collection makes clear that the complexities of our identities do not get washed away at a certain age. We conclude with “the last day of my life,” a brutal imagining of death after a fulfilling life as a representation of “coming home.”
Readers should expect religious allusions throughout the collection, something that was admittedly off-putting for me on my first read. But again, Hutchins does not shy away from complexity here: “come out, come out, wherever you are” lays out the tensions between sexuality and adolescence in its nods to Leviticus.
Ultimately, “Make Believe: Poems for Hoping Again” is spiritual in place of religious, hopeful in place of optimistic and authentic in place of insincere.
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