I loved Justin Wench's first collection and have been looking forward to reading this one. The first two sections were my favorite. Absolutely beautiful pieces that resonated with me on various levels. I also really enjoyed the pieces in section 3. But section 4 felt a little out of place in the collection, though still worth reading. Overall, I really liked this one and can't wait to share it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Andrew McMeel for the advanced copy.

3.5 stars

I really liked the voice of the poet. The lines were beautiful and I was thoroughly moved.
The illustrations were intricate and yet aesthetically minimalistic.

The poet also covers a wide range of topics:
1. home being a person versus a place.
2. love as not the end but an ongoing journey.
3. learning to open oneself up to love again despite past experiences.
4. loves that sadly, do not last, despite what the two parties wish for.
5. relating to the nature of lost loves.
6. of lovers that keep coming back to each other, etc.

Although the poems are mostly about love, they diversify towards the end and cover themes of social topics, mental health, and personal fears, etc. There is also fantastic imagery.
I rated it 3.5 stars!

Beautiful and packed words from a masterful poet. I would gladly recommend this book for lovers of verse.

Strikingly beautiful. I loved the love story told through verse in this title. The black and white drawings were deceptively simple and poignant. The progression of the story inside was wonderful. I can't wait to add it to my collection.

We could fly forever up there
And never come back down
Defying gravity forever
An eternal dance transcending time

If you’re as tired as I am of the post-modern, abstract and meaningless verses the market’s pumping with the speed of light everyday and hate trying to figure what those beautiful random words that mean nothing together mean, then you’re in the right place. I believe poems should be simple, tell much with few plain words and create countless emotions. I should not feel like solving an arithmetic problem. This amazing poem book contains good, old-fashioned love poems that I’ve been craving for many years. Yes, they’re cheesy sometimes, full of things that you already know, already have heard before but it never gets old. Love and relationships are complicated as ever but the blinding feeling of love, heartbeats, butterflies in stomach, the need to be with that person, the desire, the passion: they are always the same and should be cherished like this. The beauty of this poetry is that it doesn’t hit only one note, other common feelings and concepts like heartbreak, melancholy, depression, existentialism, death, triumph and success are majestically sprinkled between pages:

“Every time we try
To rekindle
This same old match
It only burna deeper
Into the fabric
Of who I am...”

I loved the connections the poet created between cosmos, universe and love. Stars align, planets collide, infinity and relativity is involved, gravity defied, space-time buckles and bends, chemicals clash and create love.

My absolute favorites: C.H.N.O.S,, Defying Gravity, Jamais Vu, Burn Matches, Love Does Not Subtract, Evolution vs. Man, Writer’s Block, To See the Stars:

“Stasis is comfortable.
It asks nothing of us.
But at some point
You have to ask yourself
If you’d rather
Stay comfortable
And never climb the mountain
To see the stars.”

And last but not least, the poem that came to my rescue at the darkest hour:

Triumph

We are not
A collection of failures
Because of the things
We did not win.

We are a collection of triumphs,
A middle finger raised high
Against the forces in life
That wanted to see us stay down.

We are triumphant
Because we kept fighting
Even when it seemed
Like all was lost.

I received this e-ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

To be honest - I did not read this book through to the end. I'm not a big reader of poetry. While I did really enjoy some of the poems, I did feel as if they started to get repetitive in a sense.

If you enjoy poetry - you would probably enjoy this book.

All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was an okay poetry collection! The poems in part on (titled naked souls) were a bit repetitive which wasn't a strong start for the read. The poems in the second part (broken hearts) were the best in my opinion. Everything else was okay but all sounded like things I've read before so it wasn't anything that will stay with me.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. Unfortunately, I do not have the capability to read it in the protected pdf format.

I loved the poem entitled, Night. It was one of my favorites in this collection. The pieces were short and to the point, eliminating a lot of flowery language for the most part, and you can understand the love and connection the speaker has with the woman he loves. My main comment would be the lack of variation of the layout of the pieces. Very limited punctuation was utilized, and every first letter of every line was capitalized; it made it seem like there should have been some kind of significance to the words being capitalized, but I think it was just a formatting choice. I recommend playing with capitalization and some punctuation in the layout. The pieces read a bit clipped and a bit too fast. The love the speaker is talking about seems like it is slow, like a sweet honey, but the pacing of the pieces don't really reflect that.

The poem, Drive With Me, felt like I was reading the same line twice; some of the titles were repetitive of the first line of the poem and I think the power is lost a bit when you repeat like that. This happened a few times, but this particular poem was such a powerful piece, that I wish the first line was the title, and we started the poem on the second line to really draw us into the setting.

Part 3&4 seemed completely different than 1 & 2, it didn't really fit the theme that the other two chapters had established, It felt a bit erratic, jumping from one topic to another. I'd almost like to see the chapters shortened, and some of the pieces pulled and collected together for a separate collection of poems. The current event based pieces were much more emotionally charged and I think detracted from the love poems in the first two parts. Some really wonderful pieces in here though.

A few of my favorite pieces included: Fluorescent Infinity, The Forest "this is where I keep my love for you," what an incredible line!, Blacksmith, Derelict Castles, Horcruxes, Your Favorite Place, Burns, Shadows Against Crimson,
The Roadblock to Utopia, Ape, and The Fourth Wall,

The art that accompanied these works was beautiful. I loved the black and white images throughout the collection.

This was a very beautiful compilation of stories. It was heart wrenching but completely relatable. The author did an amazing job at conveying a message and making you feel all the emotions.