To celebrate International Women’s Day, we thought why not celebrate the incredible female (and female identifying) literary greats, both past and present? So, every two weeks we will feature an extraordinary female writer and their work on the blog.
Let’s kick off with Nikita Gill, a brilliant young poet whose fame began when she started posting poems on Tumblr and Instagram in 2015. Since then, Gill has published four stunning collections of poetry. Gill writes about mental health and the human experience – love, heartbreak, trauma, survival and recovery. Her two most recent collections, Fierce Fairytales and Great Goddesses, re-tell fairytales and stories from mythology and champion female empowerment.
Gill says “The human experience and its correlation to nature is one of the most inspiring things in the world. And how we interact with each other, the great sadness and joy we experience due to the actions of others or ourselves are subjects we can all relate to,” she says. – Can I copy a quote from another article?
So, if it’s been a while since you’ve read some poetry, and you’re wondering where to start, check out these four gems:
Wild Embers
As Gill says, “Wild Embers explores the fire that lies within every soul, weaving words around ideas of feeling at home in your own skin, allowing yourself to heal, and learning to embrace your uniqueness with love from the universe.”
Featuring rewritten fairytale heroines, wisdom from goddesses, and poetry that is alight with transformative power and the journey towards personal growth, this is not a collection to be missed.
Fierce Fairytales
As we all know, traditional fairytales are full of gender stereotypes and cliches. Take the beautiful but passive princess, the ugly stepsister, the valiant prince. Nikita Gill gives these familiar stories a new, more empowered life. Little Red Riding Hood leads a pack of wolves, Cinderella saves herself and villains are given a voice. If you’ve been wanting to squeeze more fairytales into your life, this is a good place to start.
Your Soul is a River
This is a collection that deals with recovery from trauma. Each section unpacks the human condition, and explores what it means to be a part of the the wider universe. Gill writes about love and loss and resilience, and ultimately, the importance of understanding that our hopes and our dreams are never a waste of time, and that each and every one of us is beautiful.
Great Goddesses
Here we have a beautifully illustrated collection of feminist re-tellings of the classic stories of Greek Goddesses. Within you will find passionate, fiery tales of mythology’s most famous yet misunderstood heroines – Circe, Medusa, Athena, and more, each of which give a voice to these figures and reclaim the power denied them in the traditional tales.
So if you’re feeling down about the state of the world, need a self esteem boost, or just feel like reading something beautiful, pick up one of these books and lose yourself in the healing power of Nikita Gill’s words.