Ordinary Hazards and Other Poems || Mini Reviews

Okay, it has totally been forever since there was anything happening on this tiny place of the internet, and plenty of things happening off the web.

I’ve been reading up a storm in the background and now of course, I’m behind again on publishing the reviews here… There is some work to be done but I’ll manage to publish everything and be up to date again (eventually).

Starting off 2023 reviews with two poetry collections and two that I finished in December 2022 but didn’t have a group to publish. So here they are.

DISCLAIMER: This review could contain possible spoilers based on my opinions. All opinions and views are my own.

All Along You Were Blooming by Morgan Harper Nichols


Originally published: 2020
Read: December 2022

Format: E-book
Pages: 192


Thoughts:

This poetry collection felt like walking out of a good therapy session and actually feeling like we got somewhere in that session. It focuses on four different sections (heart, mind, body, soul) and each one has inspiring pieces that revolve around the themes in the section. The writing was beautiful and flowed with grace. I really enjoyed this collection and I’m looking forward to reading more collections from this poet. The cover was the first thing I noticed about the book and I’m glad the content in the book matched the awesomeness of the cover too.

My Rating:

The book has a rating of 4.25 on GoodReads. I gave it a 5.

Mini Reviews of Ordinary Hazards and Other Poems #minireviews #poetry #modernpoetry #poetryreview

Ordinary Hazards by Nikki Grimes


Originally published: 2019
Read: December 2022

Format: E-book
Pages: 325


Thoughts:

This is such a beautifully written memoir and what made it stand out even more to me? It’s written in poetry form, something I haven’t come across before. It’s unique and felt like a breath of fresh air reading. The poet recollected so many painful past events in her life, it was hard reading sometimes because you could feel the pain coming off the pages. The book is divided into four sections. This was a tragic and beautiful tribute to her life, reliving the memories as this was written and coming out stronger on the other side.

My Rating:

The book has a rating of 4.42 on GoodReads. I gave it a 5.

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein


Originally published: 1974
Read: January 2023

Source: Digital Library
Format: E-book
Pages: 187


Thoughts:

This collection has such a variety of poems to enjoy, ranging from all sorts of lengths. Some of the poems were standalone pieces while others were ‘explained‘ through illustrations. This collection left a bigger impact on me than most of the modern collections I’ve been reading. These poems are suitable for middle graders as well as adults alike to enjoy. The language used is easy to understand, like basic, and the poem meanings are pretty to the point, laced with enough humor to tickle your tummy muscles.

My Rating:

The book has a rating of 4.32 on GoodReads. I gave it a 5.

More reviews from this author

The Giving Tree – Shel Silverstein

Whiskey, Words and a Shovel 1 by r.h. sin


Originally published: 2015
Read: January 2023

Source: Digital Library
Format: E-book
Pages:
306


Thoughts:

This collection contained a lot of words, words on words, but sadly none of them had any real feeling attached to them. This collection felt like there was extreme pressure to put together something before the cut off date and then just pushed forward to get published. There are many topics covered in the book but the poet jumped around with them too much to really get a feel for the meaning and let anything sink into the environment created. I’m really struggling to find a collection from this poet since the first one I read that really stands out to me.

My Rating:

The book has a rating of 3.83 on GoodReads. I gave it a 1.

More reviews from this author

She’s Strong but She’s Tired – r.h. sin
I Hope This Reaches Her in Time – r.h. sin
Algedonic – r.h. sin
A Beautiful Composition of Broken – r.h. sin

IN THE COMMENTS:

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