Poetry Book Reviews Novels & Stories

Novels, grimoires, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson. Wait, what? The Emily Dickinson? She hid most of her poems until the day she died, but looking at this book, holding it, it feels like everything she had written is in here. It's a lot, there were still poems of her that I haven't read yet, I never knew about its existence until now. I quickly opened the book and the pages were amazing, you know that scent of old books? This one has it, that one familiar scent of home, of comfortability, of coffee in the early morning while it's raining. I stopped on a particular poem, one I've read over and over again. I'm Nobody! Who are you?

The reviews began arriving on Thursday. Patricia Osei had told me to read them but not to organize my understanding of the book around them because the book had been written for the women in the long middle and the women in the long middle were not the reviewers. The reviewers were the first room the book passed through on its way to the people it was for. The first review I read was from a literary publication that described the book as unflinching and specific and written with the particular authority of someone who had lived inside the thing she was describing rather than observing it from outside.

I make my way through the aisles, my fingers trailing along the spines of books, until I reach the poetry section. I don't know why I'm drawn here. I just am. My body moves like it knows something my brain doesn't. I walk through the poetry section, line by line, shelf by shelf, until I stop. My hand freezes mid-reach. 'Pablo Neruda.' A whole row of his work, lined up neatly, my fingers pause over one book in particular. 'Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair.' I pull it off the shelf slowly, like it might bite me. The cover is worn, soft under my fingers, like someone's held this book a lot and loved it.

I close the door quietly. I spend an hour in the smaller library looking at the books. He has everything. Fiction. Nonfiction. Art books. History. A whole shelf of poetry that looks like it has never been touched. I pull out a volume of Mary Oliver and flip through it. Someone has dog-eared a page. I read the poem. "Wild Geese." I read it twice.

"It's difficult to choose just one. But there is a particular book of poetry that holds a special place in my heart. It speaks of the complexities of the human spirit." Catherine's interest deepened, and she approached him, her gaze fixed on the shelf. "Would you mind sharing it with me?" Shawn reached for the book, gently pulling it out from its place. The cover was worn and aged, a testament to the many times it must have been read in the past. “This is 'Whispers of the Soul' by renowned poet Alexander Sinclair," Shawn said, holding the book delicately in his hands. "His words have a way of touching the deepest parts of one's being, unraveling the mysteries of the human experience."