Anna Jacobson mixes up the fiercely serious with the whimsical in her second book of poems, exploring a daily life of navigating small rituals and routines along with anxiety, a crippling companion.Anxious in a Sweet Store is Anna Jacobsons second illustrated poetry collection where the sweet, whimsical, humorous, and quirky is juxtaposed with the anxious forces of mental illness within the disabling mental health care system.Dip into this collection as you please, pick and choose, or devour the whole lot from start to finish. You are invited to take lessons in anxiety, play a French horn, learn how to photograph poets, and haunt a seclusion room in a psychiatric ward. Themes of food, family, dreams, and culture crystallise, while the poets mind is fizz bang sherbet on the tongue.Anxious in a Sweet Store is an inventive collection of poems that build and enrich each other across threads of music, anxiety, and observation from a writer who wants her voice heard so others feel less alone in their experiences.Unfolding tenderly and peppered with observational humour, Anxious in a Sweet Store is an intimate and insightful collection about the mind, about family, and about the beauty and complexity in daily life. Anna Jacobson lights up the dark. This gift of a book had me smiling and tearing up. Ellen van Neerven
