4 out of 4 stars
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Bleeding Gull: Look, Feel, Fly is a collection of poems that tackles some of life’s most difficult subjects such as life, death, love, autism, and cancer. The author relies on imagery to deliver the emtional qualities of these poems.
The author, Raed Anis Al-Jishi, does a fantastic job at getting the reader’s emotions to play into each of the poems. He keeps the poems short which allows for the reader to have more time to fully grasp what he is writing about. The overall feeling changes with each poem. The reader goes from confusion to joy to pain and so on. The way the selections are organized also gives the book a lyrical quality similar to that of Edgar Allan Poe. The poems flow easily from one page to the next.
I loved the fact that Al-Jishi included words that are rarely used such as opining, salience, and identikits. I thought at first they were spelling mistakes, but I did a little research and found out the true meanings of those words. The use of these words added to the overall quality of the works and created a very thought provoking air. I had to read some of these poems multiple times to understand the full meaning of them as in Fatimah, while with others I got the idea rather quickly such as in Blindness.
There is a change in narration genders throughout Bleeding Gull: Look, Feel, Fly. The poems change from masculine, such as Beirut Nights and An Affair, to feminine, as narrated in Qateefy Nature and Upside-Down Creature. Some of the poems seem to be gender neutral as if they are being seen from a gull’s eye. The shifts in gender ensure that there is a poem for everybody.
I give Bleeding Gull: Look, Feel, Fly, by Raed Anis Al-Jishi, 4 out of 4 stars. It is a very thought provoking and emotional collection of poems that is filled with imagery. The author uses a wide array of words, including some that are rarely heard. The lyrical quality of these poems is reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe. There is a change of gender during the narrations of the poems which ensures that there is a selection for everyone. Al-Jishi uses poetry to bring light to some of life’s most difficult challenges. I highly recommend this book for anyone that wants a thought provoking read, however if someone is looking for simplicity, this is not the book for them.
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Bleeding Gull - look, feel, fly
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