Tag: poetry

Book Review

Moon Reads: Find Peace in a poem

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Find Peace in a poem

Rating: MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px

Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.

Disclaimer: Receiving a review copy from the publisher does not affect my opinion of the book. If you think I review it highly it is due to me knowing my taste well and therefore not requesting books I won’t enjoy. And I am not obligated to review the book if I do not like it, so you may not see bad reviews due to me preferring not to hype down a particular book. I only do reviews of books I disagreed with if I think it is worth bringing a topic or warning to light.

This is a lovely little poetry book, with a good collection of poems about mindfulness and about various topics to do with peace, calm and introspection.

The collection comes with the poems by “topic” and each beautifully illustrated. Some of the poems were ones I had read before or knew quotes that had come from them, but other were new to me and I found them fascinating. As it is always the case with a poetry collection, some of the pieces resonated more with me than others and there was one in particular that just stuck.

The Ink Cure by Kate Wakleing just hit me deeply, because damn, I use at and sketches, the little distracted doodles to navigate sometimes complex feelings or situations. It is known that my art is heavy in emotion and expression and part of it is because to me drawing is both a mindful practice and a very emotionally driven one. And I felt like this poem captured a lot fo my feelings very well.

I recommend this book for getting a nice encouraging collection that guides you through various approaches and ideas with a good touch of art and illustration. Beautiful in so many ways!

Writing

Moon Writes: smell the sea, smell the woods

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standing near the edge,
a place where
water and sand converge,
waves of melancholy gently kiss my feet.

they come to shore full of vibrancy,
trying to take the earth whole,
yet as they retreat reluctantly,
one can hear the sea cry.

me and the waves,
blow kisses to the wind
that playfully catches
in between my hair.
 
a whiff of you in my curls,
a spell unlocked by nature,
magic that sings a blessing
with the whisper of a curse.

blessings that filter through
treetops, as sunshine glows
in the woods of memories
while the river of our story flows

it gently carries the weight
of you, i and us.
tears and fears, awe and hope
it takes it all in, it takes it all

and a curse that whispers,
“you are alone, all alone,
lost in the woods,
without a place to call home”.

pour salt in my wounds;
roots that go deep,
ground me in this world,
and are made to seek

make a poultice for my soul,
from the garden that grows
inside that heart of yours,
shade that keeps it cool

i smell the sea,
it’s a blessing
i smell the woods,
reject the curse

take a breath 
catch your scent,
you hold me close,
and i am content…

I sometimes forget some of the things I wrote, this is one of those poems that has some lines I would like to work into something and then a lot of lines I am unsure about, but the pace is interesting and I love how it deals with blessings, magic and curses. Sometimes you know things before you know them. (This was written again in 2015/2016, old words)

Writing

Moon Writes: watch me disappear

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watch me disappear
as you claim to be,
do, know, see
more than me

(who cares that 
i shared my love for it, 
showed you a vulnerability)

watch me disappear
as you ignore my words
and blank my actions
i am invisible

(not worth your attention now
but if we rewind the film
it wasn’t that way before)

watch me disappear
you got what you needed
climbed the ladder up
above where i am

(go, be special, be famous
walk all over me,
who cares, right?)

watch me disappear
steal my victories
make them yours

watch me disappear
or rather, not,
since i don’t exist anymore

Sometimes out of bad things, good things happen and you get an interesting poem. At first, I re-read this poem and couldn’t remember the exact reason I wrote it and had a certain type of feelings, then shared it with a friend who did remember the original times exactly and then it was like seeing it in a whole new light. In my friend’s words: “it is a surprise what beauty can come out of the terrible things”. Not wrong, not wrong at all…

Writing

Moon Writes: come, come

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come, come,
look for me.
run, run,
you can find me.

stop,
don’t you know 
where
i am?

wait,
if you listen hard, 
if you glance this way,
you may catch me off guard.

A glimpse of a curl, 
pale paper skin peeking through my clothes,
the rise and fall of my chest,
hands holding breasts,
to protect the rhythm that hides.

A head full of dreams,
cradled in the sleep of the just,
’til it’s interrupted by screams…

oh wake me,
WAKE me! 
save me,
if you must…

here, here,
hold my head against your skin,
wrap your arms tight around me,
we’re free, we’re meant to be.

Little odd poem about many things, but mostly about panic attacks coming in the middle of the night and needing comfort and gentleness to deal with them. Again, something a little old since I haven’t written any new poetry in years, but I still like these little snippets of a time gone by that thankfully is now far away enough to look back to.

Writing

Moon Writes: forgive and forget

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The first to seek forgiveness
admitting wrongs
deeper vesting in love
can it be?

“I’m sorry!”

My existence, whispering apologies
shouldering responsibility
for all the wrongs
guilt-ridden, self admonished.

“It’s my fault! “

Just a way to show
my love for you
a way to let you know
you mean more than you know.
I don’t want you to think 
I’m always this wrong. 

“I’m so sorry!”

Caught in my own web,
guns backfiring inside my head.
piling up the failures
apologizing for things beyond my control, 
taking responsibility for others wrongs 

“Forgive me”

For I have loved the most…
loved everyone so much, that I forgot 
to love the one who needed it more.
Myself. 

“Sorry.”

For-give. 
what am I giving? 
For-get. 
what am I getting?

Forgiving.
Forgetting. 
To live, to love,
I am not alone in this,
not everything is my wrong.
And you can’t see I’ve grown.

Old poems come back again, apparently, I had a lot to say about self-love and apologies back in 2014. Which in all honesty was a tough period of time for me, but it helped me grow and we’re here for the better.

Writing

Moon Writes: i raise the glass

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The Loss of the Self in Sickness and Pain by Moon Kestrel

to the ghosts of my illness,
who come and put a sympathetic hand on my shoulder,
reminding me of what it was like to have them
around in the flesh rather than just in glimpses.

to their randomness,
for they do as they please.
weather changes or tiredness
will draw them near with ease.
the thumping inside my head as they knock
to let me know i lived through it all.

to their humming in my ears,
recounting the past and the tears.

sometimes they make me cry,
taking advantage of my sensitivity,
but they’re not evil
they’re just ghosts.

here’s to the phantoms
that keep reminding me how bad it was
but instead, succeed at making me grateful.

i raise my glass,
to them all,
for i am alive
i survived.

A toast. Because sometimes old poems and pieces of artwork speak better than new words (this was written in May 2016), and the artwork is from 2013. Some ghosts are persistent, some are here to stay.

I hadn’t done a Moon Writes post in a while and given that I’ve had a small regression and remembering how bad the pain can be, this felt applicable, and hey, maybe it will speak to others, even if it is a toast made for my specific ghosts.

Book Review

Moon Reads: Run Rebel

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Run Rebel by Manjeet Mann

Rating: MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px

Read before: No

Ownership: Purchased to read

Content Warnings: Domestic abuse, violence, gaslighting, arranged marriage, racism, bullying, mental health, drinking/alcoholism

I don’t always start a review by comparing the book to others, but due to the huge amount of content warnings, I want to place it right. Rub Rebel is powerful, but it is as if you had mixed Poet X with Monday’s Not Coming or Fight Like a Girl.

Now, if you have read any of those books, you will know they are gritty intense books about the not so pretty side of being a girl and trying to live life in a complicated family situation. And Run Rebel is about a girl who loves running and is good at it but her dad expects her to marry and not go on studying and she struggles to keep rising through the world when she keeps feeling the punches coming down.

It is a story about reacting and then acting, being reactive to proactive, but also about appreciating the things you have, the small respites, the little things sometimes you don’t consider or how opportunities may come.

I had to take some time as I read this as it is intense and you really feel for the characters, so please read it carefully, but the poetry approach is intense and also good at conveying the story quickly, in a way that makes it understandable. In the poem form of the story, the verses take away the fluff and give the narrator a voice unique to them that is as if they are writing the poems to tell their story, to vent and to breathe, like bleeding on the page.

Recommended for readers of intense stories, fans of Elizabeth Acevedo and any for the titles mentioned above or the authors.

Book Review

Moon Reads: The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named

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The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named by Nicole Sealey

Rating: MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px Grey

Read before: No

Ownership: Bought for myself

Sometimes I impulse buy chapbooks of poetry when a poem hits me deeply, and that is the case here.

I came across Nicole Sealey through the poem Even the Gods and the analysis provided under Ordinary Plots. Even weeks after reading it, the words of it are still dancing in my head and living there rent-free. As Devin, see the linked blog post, explains, the word even does a lot of work in the poem but it was fascinating what it was trying to do and how much the little poem says in a few lines.

Everytime I read it, I get a little more, a little different from it, and therefore, I had to buy the chapbook. So I did. And I have to say not all the poems in it are as powerful, or at least not as powerful to me personally, but there are still quite a lot fo good ones and it was inteeresting to read and just try to see what the author was trying to say but also the way the words were used to say things. That is one of the things I enjoy of poetry, the use of words and how they can have a lot of meaning in a single one.

This is not a long post, but I do want to feature the chapbook because it is worth checking it and also getting the powerful poems in it.

Book Review

Moon Reads: Your Heart is the Sea

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Your Heart is the Sea by Nikita Gill

Rating: MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px Grey

Read before: No

Ownership: Bought after reading Amanda Lovelace and wanting something similar

Spoiler free review: Yes

Content warnings: abuse, violence, heartbreak, manipulation, trauma

Generally, I am not someone who reads a lot of poetry, but I try to read some in between books and this book just felt like one I wanted to read.

Your Heart is the Sea is very much about how hearts heal and feel and break and process trauma and heartbreak/heartache due to relationships. It seems to cover mostly lovers rather than other kinds but also touches on family.

Some of the poems are short and sweet, and some are more complex. Some will be like “oh those words sounds nice together” and then as I read more and more, I felt them more and more, they hit closer to home, to what I had lived or felt and I could make them mine rather than just words on a page they became part of what was in my heart.

The book is divided into sections, each dealing with a particular part of relationships, like pain or recovery or other parts, and they poems seem to slowly tell a story of a relationship that breaks apart, the back and forth and then the recovery, finding you are a whole person, and you can do this on your own.

As for the poetry part, some of the poems are rhymes, others are more a single line or paragraphs, almost like micro or mini fiction, short stories interwoven between poems that complete the picture. At first I wasnt convinced by the change of pace but as the book goes along they felt better placed, not sure if it was just I got more used to the style or they were better.

When I finished I had to pause and just let it all sink in and wash over me like waves of nostalgia, or memories over me.

Recommended for lovers of heartfelt poetry, for those who had bad relationships or suffered heartbreak and abuse and want some healing balm poetry or are okay to dive back into memories of the good and the bad with a new view on it. Or if you just like pretty words making pretty poems.

Book Review

Moon Reads: A Thousand Mornings

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A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver

Rating: MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px MoonKestrel Logo2 20px

I can’t remember how exactly I stumbled upon Mary Oliver’s poetry but what I can remember is that it caught my eye and that artistic par tof me wanted to read more, to have some more poems to munch and mull over for a lazy read if I could. I had a hard time choosing which one of her books to buy, but ended up settling for A Thousand Mornings since it felt like it had the right kind of poems for me and what I would like to read.

I was not wrong, and I enjoyed the poetry, it is old style, and it has a lot of story, some of it is simpler than other pieces but overall it is cohesive and it speaks well. The way Mary Oliver uses language reminded me of mornings and cups of coffee and just being awake slowly and sometimes abruptly.

So I guess the best review I can give is to say that the poetry and poems spoke to me, and the words were beautiful and charming, lyrical and magical, and I couldn’t escape them so I read until I came to the end of the book and felt like this was the book to read one poem every morning until they run out to savour it.

If you like poetry and just reading pretty phrases that stir your heart I can recommend reading this, it is quite short and concise but still good reading.