SALOME AND THE BATTLE POEMS
TYLER ROSE MANN
MY RATING: ★★★
WARNINGS: drugs, suicide & self harm
FROM: The author
“So I dance into my own dawn,
Peeling off layers til I am left with nothing but bone marrow,
Luminous with moonlight and mischief”
my thoughts
This was a very short poetry collection, reigning in at 57 pages. This told the tale of the writer and her life. The ups and downs, the heartbreaks and surprises.
As a poetry student I definitely recognised how differently I viewed this book in comparison to how I would have viewed it earlier in my life. I’ve found I am more understanding, but also more critical.
For me personally, I enjoyed reading about 3 of these poems. This is pretty average for me, especially when the poems revolve around a topic I personally don’t relate to or have a specific interest in learning more about (a lot of this was about recovery, from self harm, drugs, bad living, etc etc) I found all three of my favourites were at the beginning of the collection.
However that’s not to say I hated or even disliked this book. Tyler has a good command of free verse poetry and shows that well in this collection. She manages to weave in poetic lines with Things that feel “normal”
However this didn’t always work ( but when does it always work? ) personally I feel like a few of these poems could’ve been left out, and that the rest of them would’ve benefitted from being put into a larger collection.
I LIKED:
the well crafted poems
The mixing of poetics and normality
The longer length of her poems
I WAS MEH ABOUT
the overall length of the collection
Half of the poems
That’s it, honestly this is something I think people with similar experiences as Tyler will respond well to. They might even benefit from this. However it just wasn’t the right poetry collection for me, though I am definitely intrigued to see what Tyler comes out with next
Thank you to the author for sending me a free physical copy in exchange for an honest review
Until next time,
Sarah
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