3 out of 4 stars
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Pigeons of Poetry by Youssef Ahalla is a collection of "kind-escape" poems as described by the poet. The collection contains seven poems encompassing fourteen pages total. The poems vary in themes from politics to reminiscing on a lost love.
This collection of poetry is reminiscent of the poems of E. E. Cummings in that the poet does not utilize punctuation. This technique makes it harder to understand where one idea ends and another begins. Because of that difficultly the reader must come to really understand the poet and what he is trying to say. Some of the poems like "Rain Comes Down," seem to be all over the place and thrown together with no rhyme or reason to it. It felt like Youssef's mind was all over the place while writing these poems. There were times when the poems simply became too difficult to follow what the poem was addressing.
The poems included in Pigeons of Poetry not only randomly changes in thoughts and ideas, but also in font. The lines go from regular font to italics. Could this be because the italics represent the side thoughts of the poet? The changes in font add a quality to each poem; one that provides a deeper glimpse into the poet's mind? I had to read these poems several times to understand them, and honestly I don't think I fully understand what the poet is trying to get across. I am not sure if that is because of the non existent punctuation or spacing, or the random train of thoughts. Sadly I found the collection a little difficult to understand on several accounts.
I really enjoyed reading Youssef's poetry. The collection was completely different from what I am used to reading. One of my favorite lines out of this collection is found in the poem "Lilaria." It states, "I wrote to you non-decipherable words with yoga movements." The image it provided me of words bending and twisting into something different, something beautiful was exquisite. The poet has an uncanny talent for making his words bend and twist into a beautiful image dancing around in the reader's mind.
With his beautiful words and interesting use of font, I give this collection a 3 out of 4. The downfall to the collection was the confusion in where ideas began and ended. Breaking the lines up with spacing or punctuation would have made things clearer and easier to read.
Pigeons of Poetry is a wonderfully written collection. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys poetry of all forms.
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pigeons of poetry
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