Tags: Josh Glasson, poems
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Book Review: Diary of the One Swelling Sea by Jill McCabe Johnson
16 Jul
Living on Orcas Island, Jill McCabe Johnson is a close neighbor to the sea. In her briny poems, she takes us even closer–letting us read the sea’s diary. From sea ground to surface, we see the intimate, inside story. Careful observation, precise research, musical phrasing, and active imagining surge through these poems. Ninety-five percent of earth’s oceans remain unexplored. What better metaphor for the vast mysteries of our existence–the constant change, the contamination, the resurgence, the essence of life and death. In these elegant poems, forces huge as magma shove up and forces delicate as brittle stars taste changes in sea water. Marvelous.
– Peggy Shumaker
Author of Gnawed Bones and Just Breathe Normally
Available on Amazon
My Review
I chose to read this book after receiving a free e-copy. All opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased.
It’s obvious that the author of these poems lives near the sea. They bring the ocean and its occupants alive with vivid descriptions. The poems are short and at first, I didn’t think I was going to like them but they build on each other.
A wonderful book of descriptive poems about the sea. One of my favorites:
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Book Review: Ghosts of Old Virginny by Milla Van Der Have
10 Jul
Title: GHOSTS OF OLD VIRGINNY
Author: Milla van der Have
Publisher: Aldrich Press (imprint of Kelsay Books)
Pages: 42
Genre: Poetry
BOOK BLURB
Virginia City, Nevada has been drawing the adventurous for over 100 years. It has been the home of gold-miners, businessmen and writers. After the bonanza, Virginia City reinvented herself and became a ghost town that draws travelers and artists. And, as it happened, a Dutch poet.
Milla van der Have visited Virginia City in 2014, on a writer’s residency to finish her novel. But once there, something happened: the Comstock got to her. In Ghosts of Old Virginny, Van der Have explores the legends and history of the Comstock by reimagining them. These poems deal with being uprooted and leaving the known behind. They speak of miners, ghosts and horses and throughout of the comfortable tension of love, that greatest journey of all.
You can purchase your copy of Ghosts of Old Virginny at Amazon
My Review
I chose to read this book after receiving a free copy. All opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased.
Ghosts of Old Virginny is a book of poems about the old Virginia City. They’re about miners and mining, the Gold Rush, legends, history of pioneers, and love. They’re full of beautiful descriptions and history.
Any lover of poetry and history will enjoy these poems. One of my favorites:
A Boomtown Love
They’ll settle in on anything, old legends.
Like mountain ghosts. They’ll take
hold of you. Say that night we broke
our bottles like vows upon the path.
All was silent except for your silver
laughter and that sudden rain of glass.
We sat down amidst the shards, counted
their sparks as blessings and the way
the moon swindled off their light edges.
And I remember thinking, this is it,
this is all that will come to mean
something in our days of rest.
About the Author
Milla van der Have (1975) wrote her first poem at 16, during a physics class. She has been writing ever since. One of her short stories won a New Millennium Fiction Award. In 2015 she published Ghosts of Old Virginny, a chapbook of poems about Virginia City. Milla lives and works in Utrecht, The Netherlands.
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The Amazon purchase link in this post is an affiliate link. Purchasing through it helps sustain Bound 4 Escape.
