In When the Banshee Howls, John W. Leys employs his life experiences and erudition to create an immersive […]
Book Review
When the Banshee Howls and other poems (Broken Wing Publishing, 2022) by John W. Leys is a deftly considered collection of poetry and photographs defining an epoch in a man’s life. A palpable sense of returning home. This is a story of death, loss, spirituality and survival.
I can still feel
The sinking in my heart
When I realized
How limited our time really was,
And the crushing devastation
When they told me
You were gone. (I Can Still Feel You)
Review by John W. Leys By the end of the first page Kindra Austin’s The Killing Holiday will […]
Flowers on the Wall by Kristiana Reed
Review by John W. Leys
I first encountered the poetry of Kristiana Reed on her blog My Screaming Twenties and very quickly became a fan of her writing. Last year Reed published her first poetry collection, Between the Trees, which was a fantastic poetry cycle telling the story of her emotional life. The depth of her poetry and her skills as a writer belie her youth, like many great poets and writers Reed seems to house an old soul, or at least a soul prematurely aged by experience. I devoured Between the Trees and looked forward to reading more of Reed’s work in the future. I was pleasantly surprised when I found that she was publishing a follow up to Between the Trees so soon after that books release. I was not at all disappointed.
All the Beginnings of Everything is a poetic triumph for Kindra M. Austin. As in her previous collections, […]
Between the Trees: Poetry and Prose is the debut poetry collection by Kristiana Reed of My Screaming Twenties and Free Verse Revolution. This is much more than just a collection of verse and prose. Reed has created a vessel for the reader to follow her in on a poetic journey through her life, which is bookended by the poems ‘Between the Trees’ and ‘Beyond the Trees’ (The poem ‘Grown Up’ appears first in the collection, acting as a prologue to the poetic cycle that follows).
This is the first of a new feature on this blog. I’ll be posting ocassional reviews of books that I am reading, poetry related or not. If you’d like to see more of these, please let me know in the comments.
Title: The Viking Spirit: An Introduction to Norse Mythology and Religion.
Author: Daniel McCoy
This book is intended as a introduction to Norse/Viking Mythology and culture for the layman. It is written in a fairly accessible style and contains a plethora of information and retells many of the best known tales from Norse Mythology. He also includes many footnotes and a large bibliography if one is inclined to read deeper about these topics. However, there are some pretty substantial flaws in the book that a potential reader should be aware of:
John W. Leys 