A Heart Without Words Review

Rating: 4/5

Title: A Heart Without Words

Author: David F. McDonald

Page Count (ebook): 48

Page Count (print): 96

Official Amazon Description

This is the first of two books which deal with the one thing the Military can’t train, THE HEART, and the emotions a Soldier may encounter.This poetry deals with the emotions Soldiers and their loved ones must deal with in a myriad of situations.

This poetry is much softer in nature to my previous work and is, I hope, easier on the reader for that.

My Thoughts

      I have to say this is definitley one of the better collections of poetry I have read. First of all, at 96 pages in print it is a good length for a collection of poetry. Though it may seem insignificant, the page count in poetry collections is very important, if there are too few poems then the reader never truly discovers the author's writing style and if there are too many poems the reader can get bored. Trust me, I've read published poetry collections 6 pages in length, hardly a sufficient length for a poetry collection. So what I'm saying here is right from the start A Heart Without Words was on top of its game.

      Despite the occasional typo, which didn't bother me but may bother some readers, the poetry within the pages of this book is very good. I found it a very unique read as many of the poems were written in the form of dialogue, something that I haven't seen very often in poetry. The verse itself is mainly written in terms of rhyme, there was very little free verse included in this collection. The majority of the poems seemed to focus upon the various ways soldiers die and their thoughts during death. These morbid poems were if profoundly sad, beautifully written. I would recommend this collection of poetry to all those who are prepared to contemplate the final thoughts of dieing men and women.

   If you are interested in reading a sample of the poetry included in this book, I featured one of McDonald's poems titled A Soul during my Highlight Poetry segment, you can check that out here.

Buy Links:

Amazon (kindle)

 

Highlight Poetry #4

A Soul

By: David Mc Donald

A soul awaits a journey to be made, unaware of why or where it goes

Confused alone and even frightened, the soul forgotten all it knows

As if reborn from something old, the fruits of some great unknown feat

A spirit which hovers unaware of its place, oblivious to who it will meet

An invisible entity of a person’s life, all that went before they grew

Then when still on unfounded feet, a sense of movement where it flew

The feeling of accompaniment, someone is now by their side

A being who allows peace and love, one who shows them their own pride

Not flight but a soft elevation, climbing effortlessly to where they go

Beside the spirit climbs with freedom, a dawning as they come to know

The existence just departed behind, feelings of regret and pain and desire

All that made a man has gone, now a feeling a sense a being on fire

There awaits a new existence, visible tangible and real laid out ahead

The home of superior being born, your God you know has made your bed

The rush of love and affection from around, a feeling of where you belong

Within a beautiful resonance vibrates, your being has burst forth with song

A Brief Commentary

       Today's poem for Highlight Poetry was submitted to me by David Mc Donald. The first time I read this poem I was immediatley drawn to it and lost myself in the journey the soul was making. In my first reading of this poem, I percieved that the poem was on a carefree sort of journey as it departed the misery behind it. Upon reading the poem a second time however, I realized that there was indeed a deeper and more sombre tone to the poem as the soul overcame the pain of death and the regrets of life to travel ever skyward to heaven. I also noticed upon re-reading the poem the progression of the soul as a being. Where as in the beginning the soul was an "invisible entity" and referred to as something separate than its human shell (due to its journey from the body at death) by the end of the poem, the soul is referred to as the most spiritual (not necessarily in the religious sense) of "you". I think that perhaps this progression from the soul being a separate entity identified seperatley from the deceased person to it actually becoming "you" was the most poignant part of the poem, as it discovered itself.

What struck you about this poem? Were you more struck by the soul's 'physical' journey out of death or it journey of self-awareness?

Highlight Poetry #3

I Hold You in My Heart

By: Gin Bourgeois







Courtesy of Gin Bourgeois





I hold you in my heart

For my arms just shan’t

From the very early start

This sickly sweet torment

A quench-less thirst

A hunger I cannot Fill

Loving anguish, turned curse

Is for you what I feel

As I daze in your eyes so green

I am consumed with you

The most beautiful I have seen

And ache the very touch of you

The heart alone has its reasons

To succumb to such forbidden silent devotion

Unbearable loving emotions

A secret unexplained I dare not to mention

You are the treasure I hide to keep

Buried in my chest’s own heartbeats

The one & only so many do seek

The one who would make me complete

A barely audible whisper

Surround my thoughts of lust & sin

A dream state I relish to linger

Shivers overtaking my skin

Desire of lips tenderly touching

Hands passionately holding

A sweet embrace quietly waiting

Patience painfully persisting…

So close yet, away from my reach

I will be waiting for all seasons passing

Shall life be kind to grant me my wish

I vow to give you my heart forever loving

What is meant to be,

Will always find its way

So I hope, beg & pray

Fate to bring you to me one day 

…I hold you in my heart…

A Brief Commentary

        This poem was submitted to me by Gin Bourgeois of Gin Rhymes for today's Highlight Poetry post. First off, being a hopeless romantic I absolutely love the subject of this poem; the torment of unrequited love which the speaker faces and her/his final decision to hold the object of their love in their heart. In this poem Bourgeois places a great focus on the tactile imagery of love, lips touching in a kiss, a 'sweet embrace' and holding hands, which only adds to the beauty of her/his love as we are confronted with her loneliness at the end as she begs for her love to take notice of her longings. I think that this is a poem which can bring each of us back to a time in our lives when we felt as the speaker does; a true mark of this poem's beauty.

      What imagery stood out for you in this poem, was it the tactile imagery of love, the audible imagery of quiet whispers, or something entirely different?

Highlight Poetry (#2)

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening

Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

 

A Brief Commentary

     This is perhaps one of Robert Frost's most famous poems and one of my absolute personal favourites; regardless of what season I'm in. Frost amplifies the romanticism of winter in this poem bringing to mind imagery of snowy forests, farmhouses covered in snow, frozen lakes collecting each crystal snowflake, all the while carrying the deeper undertones of the weary traveller. You can truly feel the traveller's desire to give into the temptations of sleep and even death as he gazes out at the "lovely, dark, and deep" woods. The desire to be free of worry and drift among the falling snowflakes is palpable as is his weary realization that he still has a great literal and metaphorical distance to go before he reaches the peace of sleep and death.

    In your opinion what do you feel Frost is trying to communicate in this poem? What imagery does it bring to your mind?





Highlight Poetry (#1)

 

A Bit of an Introduction to Highlight Poetry

     For a little while now I've been itching to start a meme but everytime I set about thinking up a theme or a name for it, I'd inevitably end up with an idea that somebody else had already come up with. Eventually I decided that I wanted to focus on something that is important to me and not recognized nearly enough; poetry. And bingo! Highlight Poetry crossed my mind as a good self-explanatory name for a meme that focused on highlighting (acknowledging) poetry. So when I searched "Highligh Poetry" in both the regular google search engine and google's blog search engine and could not find any results for a meme name "Highlight Poetry" I knew I had found the name for my meme!

The First Poem of Highlight Poetry

Embarking at Night

F. Scott Fitzgerald

1920

"We leave to-night...

  Silent, we filled the still, deserted street,

    A column of dim gray,

  And ghosts rose startled at the muffled beat

    Along the moonless way;

  The shadowy shipyards echoed to the feet

    That turned from night and day.

  And so we linger on the windless decks,

    See on the spectre shore

  Shades of a thousand days, poor gray-ribbed wrecks...

    Oh, shall we then deplore

  Those futile years!

              See how the sea is white!

  The clouds have broken and the heavens burn

    To hollow highways, paved with gravelled light

  The churning of the waves about the stern

    Rises to one voluminous nocturne,

                  ...We leave to-night."

 

A Brief Commentary Providing a Bit of Context

    I discovered this poem a couple of days ago while reading  F. Scott Fitgerald's This Side of Paradise. For those of you who are not familiar with Fitzgerald's works, This Side of Paradise is a ficitonal novel about a rather egotistical young man named Amory. Though the novel itself is not a book of poetry, through the character Amory, Fitzgerald writes several poems of which Embarking at Night was one . At the point in the novel when this poem is included, Amory is heading off to fight in the first world war and is presumably writing the poem about his emotions while he waits to embark in the night on the journey of a soldier.

    I absolutley love this poem, I think it is beautifully written, providing haunting imagery of a soldier's restless wait before he heads off to war. Through this poem Fitzgerald allows the reader to feel as if they themselves are mourning the futile years ahead and the "poor gray-ribbed wrecks" that will fall during the war. I felt as if I was truly transported to another time, while reading this poem, like I could hear the waves breaking upon far off shores and the feel the soldier's fear as he prepared to embark.

What are your thoughts? What struck you most about Emarking at Night?

To learn more about how you can get involved in Highlight Poetry click here.

Dark and Light: A Small Collection of Poetry

       Though I do love my classics I am also a hugh fan of poetry, being a part-time poet myself. So, I decided to embark upon the journey of reviewing a poetry collection for the first time.

       Dark and Light is a short collection of poetry (there are 5 poems in the collection) that was published in 2011 by, K. W. McCabe.True to its title, the collection moves from darkness to light
taking you from the depths of despair to the edge of the tunnel where you are just beginning to see the light again. I enjoyed McCabe's writing style and how the despair of the poems at the collection's beginning was interwoven with hope at the end in what was my favourite poem of the collection; Butterfly. To me Butterfly stood out from the rest of the collection as the strongest poem, the imagery of a butterfly in its cocoon solidified the dark theme of the collection and the diction brought to life the sense of hope and light that the title suggests should accompany the darkness. I would have appreciated a few more poems being included in the collection mainly because I believe it would have enhanced the emotionally journey of the collection. Overall I thought Dark and Light was an interesting, if short, collection of poetry.