Story People by Brian Andreas

This past year or so, I developed a passion for poetry. Now, I'm not talking about that dense, obscure poetry that you read in English class. I was never a huge fan of that. I just never understood why it was necessary to hide the meaning of the piece in super-hard-to-decipher metaphors and deep figurative language. I mean, sure, it sounds pretty cool, but it always seemed a little pretentious to me I suppose. This type of poetry seems to be something that people feel is important to study, but not something that they are willing to read for fun. Because of this, I think that there is some sort of stigma against poetry, because most people believe that it has to be so complex that it hurts your brain.

In reality though, there are many poets who are, in my opinion, equally as brilliant without being equally as complex. My love of poetry was first sparked by a man named Charles Bukowski, who was pretty cynical and grumpy but who wrote about life in a way that made me excited to live. His work was relatively straightforward, but he seemed to notice and acknowledge things that most people have never even considered. This perspective on life made me fall in love with not only his work, but the medium of poetry as a way of expressing thoughts that you may not be able to explain any other way.

Brian Andreas entered my life shortly after I had discovered Bukowski. He is much more playful than Bukowski, but has an equally simple and readable style. Andreas has a much more uplifting outlook on life and love and friendships than Bukowski, which contrasts him perfectly. Story People really focuses on memories and childhood stories, and the poems and drawings included in the book really have an innocent feel to them.

This is the type of book that almost anyone would enjoy, whether they read poetry or not. I have lent it to two of my friends, who previously had no interest in poetry, and both of them loved it. In fact, one of them kept it for months, and when they finally had to return it, they made copies of half of the pages so that they could keep the poems with them. It's really the type of book that you will want to reread over and over again until you memorize all of the poems. It's that good.


“She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful & life was so short.” - Brian Andeas, Story People.