whiskey words and a shovel II

(This book is part of my personal library; lowercase lettering in the title and the author's name are intentional as that is how such title and name are written on the book.)

Book's Author: r. h. Sin

Genre: Poetry

Rating: Five Paws

***

Poetry for me is a way to relate to someone else about what I might be feeling at a particular time, or to find a way to justify how I feel when my feelings are all over the place (which happens a lot; I'm a teenager).

I got into poetry about six months ago because I saw all of my friends reading poetry books and I thought, naively, "I want to be like them." The first book I read was whiskey words and a shovel II. Immediately, I was hooked.

At first I had thought that poetry was about reading how someone else felt, but Sin writes his poems in such a way that it's like he's describing how you feel, not him. His poems make me feel understood, if that makes any sense. I know, teenagers are always saying "No one understands me, I'm always misunderstood, etc., etc., etc." But it isn't like that. The things he writes about are adult things. I don't know adult things. But I know how I feel; and he makes me feel it.

Another unique trait to his poems is that they do not always adhere to what they seem to be talking about. In this book in particular, there was a poem that was written about a lost lover whom left him feeling abandoned, but I was able to relate it back to a friend I'd lost a few years ago that left me feeling a similar way. Poetry is subject to interpretation, something I hadn't previously realized. This book helped me realize that.

I also love the formatting of Sin's books (I've read and reviewed another one of his compilations as well, a beautiful composition of broken). It's simple, which keeps the focus on the poem, on his words. His words are emotional, and they are beautiful. I would say the only thing that could be better is the order in which the poems are presented. But that's hardly a reason to drop the rating because the book is not meant to be rated on format. The book, and the words contained within it, do a brilliant job of eliciting emotions, and even justifying it when you don't know them.

He also covers more topics than just love. He talks about heartbreak, love, heartbreak, self-love, women empowerment, feeling everything, nothing, and general everyday things that feel good to do, which makes his book interesting because it doesn't fall into a rut of sameness. Even though the poems are short, or perhaps because the poems are so short, you'll find yourself saying, "just one more" way too late into the night because you just want to see if the next poem is as good as the last, and it always is.

I highly recommend this book to everyone, anywhere, that just went through anything (except maybe happier things because his poetry, admittedly, is not always happy, though there are those occasionally optimistic poems mixed in). r. h. Sin's words will definitely resonate with you, even if you didn't like poetry before you read his.

-T