1 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
I've read plenty of poetry collections, but Randy M. Henry's Contemporary Poetic Literature was the first time I've ever read a collection of poetic short pieces of writing. Foregoing the typical poetry standards, Randy instead writes short stories and pieces that aim to inspire in a poetic way. These pieces include love and the loss of that love, learning to become a better person through God, finding your calling in life and being a better person.
The book includes over 20 pieces within its 65 pages. The majority of the pieces do incorporate rhyme, rhyming a word somewhere in the middle of the sentence with the last word. In one case there's even a piece that's written both with rhyme and without. The pieces without rhyme still feel poetic and are a nice reprieve from the rhyming pieces.
There are, unfortunately, three major problems with the book. While poetry is incredibly subjective, the grammatical issues in the book absolutely aren't. It felt like there wasn't a single page without any errors, and many had far more than one. These run the gamut of errors including using the wrong word (want instead of won't, for example), missing a word or using a version of a word that makes no sense (consistence instead of consistent, for example). While it was easy to understand what was meant, poetry is all about choosing the right words and having so many errors is unforgivable.
The second major issue was that the rhymes were often very forced. Lines made no sense or were entirely out of place to make the rhyme work. Lines like "When we hear God's voice we become very rejoice" are common, and sometimes the lines even seem to go against the whole point of the piece. This was made most evident in the two versions of the same piece - the one without rhymes felt so much smoother and cleaner, yet it still felt poetic.
Finally, every single piece is written entirely in italics in one solid paragraph. This is literally every piece, regardless of length, topic or whether it used rhyme or not. One of the things I looked forward to with the concept of literary poetry was seeing paragraphs used in unique ways. As it was, the more I read the harder it became to continue with such long, solid blocks of text and I had to take numerous breaks.
There were some interesting lines throughout the book, but overall I can't recommend this one to anyone. The concept was great and the topics were solid and varied - I really loved that God was praised so much, and the author wrote the love and lost-love pieces with some heavy emotion. Unfortunately, the writing (format and rhyme) was nowhere near as varied - it was basically either with or without rhyme. As such, I'm giving Contemporary Poetic Literature 1 out of 4 stars. That being said, I do hope Randy doesn't give up on the concept!
******
Contemporary Poetic Literature
View: on Bookshelves
Like CataclysmicKnight's review? Post a comment saying so!
