Book Review: How Far You Have Come: Musings on Beauty and Courage, by Morgan Harper Nichols

Rating: 5 stars of 5

Morgan has become one of my favorite poetic authors this year. I first read her All Along You Were Blooming, then picked up a copy of How Far You Have Come after I loved the other so much.

This volume is beautiful. It is a volume of place-based poetry interspersed with reflective narrative sections, and the whole book is filled with Morgan’s beautiful illustrations. As a native Californian, I especially loved reading the California section, but I also found myself dog-earing pages all throughout the book so I could revisit my favorite poems later on.

Here are a couple of stanzas that stood out to me as I read:

• “Invite joy to
  meet your sorrow.
  Let in hope
  for tomorrow.
  Bridge the fragments
  of who you are,
  and learn to see
  beauty in your scars.”
  

• “You will desire to go
  beyond the limits
  to get there faster.
  But moving at a careful pace
  requires courage in this race,
  as if to say
  time does not define me,
  I do not answer to the tick of the clock
  and will not give in to its alluring tongue.
  In my own speed,
  with my own limits,
  I am still becoming.”
  

• “Come back down
  to the beat of your heart.
  Come back to the joy of color.
  Come back home to believing
  hope still runs in your veins.
  You’re finding your way
  in the wind,
  but you can always come
  back to Light again.”

  Highly recommend, and while you’re at it, pick up All Along You Were Blooming too. I liked that one even better, to the point that I wanted to buy an extra two copies so I could turn the pages into a collection of framed art prints for my walls. I still might do just that! =)