THE JOURNEY OF LIFE, FROM MY HEART TO YOURS

From Bane, a debut collection of emotional love poems.

Over the course of more than 200 pages of poems, arranged alphabetically, the narrator professes enamored feelings for a beloved, expresses gratitude for the love they share, and details the ache of absence. These devotional love poems are written in first-person rhyming quatrains with a hypnotic, rhythmic quality. In an idyllic, magical landscape bordered by waves and home to rainbows and moonbeams, the beloved is compared to many forms: a star, an angel, a missing puzzle piece, a rose: “In the distance is the sunset, / Colored in pastels of red and blue. / This mystery on the horizon / Made me think of loving you.” This bubble of romantic enchantment is a world where dancing is encouraged, memories are always good, and a pot of gold is discovered in every kiss. The love felt by the narrator and the beloved is a fated and forever love. “Fate brought us together / When we never expected to be. / A kiss so tender on a blissful night— / The beginning of you and me,” begins the poem “Forever Us.” In this space, love conquers all and is the key to unlocking new blessings daily. Spirituality also plays a role, and God makes frequent appearances: “The treasure in every day / Is to cherish all that’s real: / The touch of God within us / And His blessings that we feel.” As familiar as this lovey-dovey language will be to anyone who has fallen hard for a seemingly perfect partner, the repetitive nature of the rhyming scheme and the constant recurrence of the same symbols (heaven’s door, rainbows, sunshine, dreams) grow tiresome. These are trite poems with little of the grit and sacrifice and scars inherent in love lived in reality. Excellent physical descriptions—“Your coat is woven with golden threads / From strands of angel’s hair,”—are the highlights of the collection.

A seemingly endless book of nearly identical poems on romantic idealism.