ever have I ever thought to compare the noisiness of love and heartbreak to a colony of bees but Auden does so effortlessly.
His poetry is raw, emotive, and timely, neither sloppy or slimy. It’s free verse instead of rhymed meter.
The Beekeeper will resonate with anyone who has felt the sting of love’s heartbreak, and the memories and processing of letting someone go long after they left.
The Smart Cookie Philes provided this review FREE of charge in honor of National Poetry Month and a low number of content creators who don’t feature poets or poetry books.
Poetry is this beautiful snippet into the window of someone’s soul and so is the case with Raquel’s collection.
The short collection offers much perspective into what it means to grieve the loss of a relative or friend, a love or romance that had to end, and the gain of finding hope in a love that wraps you up on both the good and bad days, and even the hope of finding Christ.
One thing is certain
Poetry is a nice
Reprieve from memoir and fiction
But anyone who reads this collection
Will find a new vice
Unraveling
With the ink of this author’s pen.
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Sometimes in life, without looking, we find all you weren’t searching for. With a unique cadence and story-telling rhythm Shaye Baker’s Cerebral Fossil will have you engrossed from page one.
The collection was inspired by the tragic event, the author’s unfortunate loss of his younger brother. The poems discuss these emotions and all those associated with life, death, grief, and the in-between.
Can, Can, Can, Tethered, Breathe, Garden District, A Fire Pit Story, and God Hates were my favorites yet the poem I personally resonated with was Seeds to Grow.
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Hillery is no product of trauma. She is a beautiful rose, rising high above what tried to bury her, end her, and silence her, one poem at a time. She is the voice of those who know the struggle of suffering at the cold, dirty hands of trauma, mental illness, or society’s unmeetable expectations following the divorce and/or infidelity.
“Medicine That Burns” serves you a shot of the dark liquor of life, and helps you come to terms with “not being fine” in a world that glorifies perfection, illusive love stories, but doesn’t want to fall in love with the breaking process of all of us who are broken.
Whether you’ve had you had to mask your pain or survive by masking, Hillery’s poetry will have you drunk on the truth of what it means to live even if the pain still cripples your veins.
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Poetry for me is an eye-opening experience. You step into the soles of the shoes of another but ironically enough because the human experience is mirrored through triumphs and pain, you will find some of ‘you’ in the pages of Bare Roots.
No matter whether you’ve gone through similar traumatic experiences as Hillery:
sexual assault and rape
anorexia, addictions, and self-harm
depression and suicidal thoughts
suicide attempts
or overall just feeling like a burden to the people you love.
My favorite piece in this collection was a piece called What They Don’t Tell You In College which poignantly pens the struggle between feeding on the lies they sell you about growing up and adulthood and the reality as painful as it may be, as it is.
Bare Roots will act as new soil and help you water the roots of the trauma so you can start anew, flourish and thrive.
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Hillery’s newest poetry collection will be out this Monday April 19 and it is entitled The Medicine That Burns. Look for my review coming this Monday right here. Pre-order it now and get your copy of Bare Roots here.
When someone says, “It’s a vampire book,” what’s the first image that comes to mind? For me, it’s the angst and sparkle of the skin on Edward Cullen’s torso in the movie Twilight. I was always Team Jacob myself but vampires picked up a cultural trend and popularity in the 2010 decade.
This vampire book is unlike Twilight in many ways but the key ingredient is that it is set in the Victorian era when vampires were seen as angsty romantic suitors but instead as monsters, and people ran in fear of them. In this particular book, the vampires are an army of fierce soldiers commanded to protect the local church from the “untoten.”
For me, this book is a cross between Dracula, 1917, and the Vampire Diaries minus the teenage angst but just as dark. Dare I say it this book will stab you in the heart.
Check out more from Sayda Hope at the links below.
Melissa M. Combs is no stranger to heartbreak, as her previous works, breath light to that unfortunate truth but with this full poetry collection, the reader finds the other half to the painful truth behind the heartbreak: the heartbreak of being in separation with one’s twin flame.
Twin flames are two halves of the same soul placed in two bodies, created to mirror one another to become one powerful force that when in union, seek to awaken and save the world. Combs poetry paints a spiritual picture in the works involving divine timing and interdimensional realms.
Love then becomes not something merely fashioned into glass slippers or some fancy idea that can be tossed around.
Love is ethereal, supernatural, and metaphysical, and when we truly experience it at its deepest, we begin to awaken to become expanded and growing into our highest selves.
Combs’ collection is seductively spiritual yet gentle and breathy like witnessing the height, length, and width of an angel’s wings.
If you’ve ever felt the heartbreak of meeting and loving your twin flame, and then having to separate, Combs collection will carry you through the love, the longing, and even the destructive and confusing pain inside you.
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I happened upon Michaela’s poetry on Instagram and was immediately drawn by the way she wielded words, and how her words wielded me.
To be completely honest, I was a little somber when the collection ended as it really resonated with me.
The poems were short but exhilaratingly deep, and so perfectly poignant.
The poems discuss themes i am all too familiar with as a near-thirty writer who must have quicksand in her soul because every man I’ve ever loved fell right through and out some hidden trap door. No kidding there:
Loving someone who is meant for someone else. Having toxic types that you are always drawn to like red flags are for fun and amusement, and how self-love is the key to true freedom, and attracting a love that loves you back.
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This review is 186 words and took me 2 hours to compile. I was given no compensation in exchange for this review but you are free to Buy Me a Coffee.
Cheyenne Bluett’t bright light lit up my Instagram feed. Her content is curated to encourage and inspire just about everyone.
Opening His Green Eyes, I was taken on a poetic journey of the depths of true love, something that writers have a fondness for attempting to understand by giving it a rhyme or a reason.
Yet, poets know love is unique to its counterparts and soulmates are real. Love knows no gender, no age, or no reason.
Love just is.
Reading His Green Eyes the reader is taken deep into the heart of the love and admiration for Bluett’s real life husband Robbie.
My favorite poems in the book appear below but the loving you in every color and loving you in my favorite places were by far so outside the box and refreshing, not to mention sweetly written and heartfelt, full of personal memories and momentos with her lover.
Whether you’ve always felt unworthy of lasting love or you just became a newlywed, these poems defy space and time to share sunshine into the darkest corners of any heart who cynically considers love something only of cinema screens and novel pages.
Bluett’s poetry will make a believer out of you. She made one out of me.
This review is 207 words and took me 1 hour and 23 minutes to compile. I received no compensation for this review. You can get a review just like this for $40. Order yours here.
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