Your Soul Is A River

Truly inspirational, great read and many poems I will cherish forever and continue to read to myself and others, thank you.

Raw, healing, and beautifully human 🌙💫 Your Soul Is a River is a gentle but powerful collection that speaks straight to the heart. Nikita Gill’s words feel like quiet comfort — the kind that meets you in your darkest moments and walks you back toward light. Her poetry flows with emotion, strength, and hope, reminding us that healing isn’t linear but always possible. A book to keep by your bedside and return to whenever your soul needs a soft place to land.

At the risk of sounding like a small child instead of a fully fledged adult attempting to undertake adulting on the regular, all I have to say is: Nikita Gill is my favourite. And she's my favourite because even when her collections don't hit me straight away, as this one didn't, it takes only a handful of incredible poems for me to slip straight back down that rabbit hole. The poems within "Your Soul Is A River" are a real mixed bag of emotions and themes. They start off largely about the universe and human existence and are relatively philosophical which fails to have much impact for me, and swiftly move into grief, lose, love, self-worth and guilt. It's not uncommon for guilt or grief to feature in feminist poetry such as this, but Nikita Gill really hones in on what it truly feels like to carry guilt unnecessarily. She also doesn't shy away from the less frequently portrayed deserved grief - humans are expected to make some mistakes after all and her acknowledgement that even good people mess up was great. Quite often feminist poetry is empowering, as it should be, but points the finger at someone else; it's refreshing to see a number of poems which encourage people to see their faults, accept them, but also apologise for them. Ultimately there isn't always just one victim, and she captures this well. Gill also perfectly captures what it means to grieve for someone/something you've lost - even if it was bad for you. I loved how she conveyed that there is something to be gained from experiences, even negative or painful ones. I haven't seen this done before and I think there's actually a really big place for this in modern poetry which currently feels under-explored. "Your Soul Is A River" does a number of things which other collections of the same nature do as well, but it also addresses a number of insightful ideas which those collections don't do so well. I like that Nikita Gill is a little different but, more importantly, that a number of her poems were deeply personal and impactful for me this time. Definitely worth a read.

I bought this book to my daughter. She love it. Lots of poems.

I discovered Nikita Gill on Facebook. Someone posted an image of one of her poems. There was no title and no author's name. I had to hunt her down via Google. I bought this book on Kindle and pre-ordered the paperback version of "Wild Embers" which has now arrived. And then I found her on Twitter. For personal reasons I won't go into here, I have been in Trauma Recovery for over a year. When my heart gets too heavy and too dark, this book has been a light guiding me back to myself. It has strength and softness and wisdom and light in its pages. It won't be everyone's cup of tea (what is?) but I found it healing and restorative.

I love this gem of a book - it speaks to me in many ways ! It helps me take a long deep breath and appreciate all that is good in my life !

I was underwhelmed by this poetry collection. I was expecting a constant rush of feelings when reading but that didn’t occur always. Your Soul is a River is such a compelling title. I was instantly drawn in. My main criticism is that the poems became repetitive in some sections as if I was reading an alternative version of a poem in this collection. However, at the same time, I rather loved the repetition of some of the motifs, but I'm conflicted so it's 3 stars for me.

This made me cry. I found myself a dozen times over in this book and it made my heart ache. This will go on to be one of my favourite books of poetry, re-read again and again in years to come.