Last Rites: Felones de Se is a poetry book of tragedy and sorrow

 

Felones de Se: Poems about Suicide

LindaAnn LoSchiavo

Ukiyoto Publishing, 2024

Ebook, 21 ppg.

ISBN-10: 9357707468

ISBN-13: 978-9357707466

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Writing about suicide can be difficult, especially in poetic form. But LoSchiavo manages to do this so well. With the use of metaphor, symbolism and storytelling, she creates poems capturing the last moments of life before a suicide as well as the aftermath that follows. She also handles the matter of the deaths in a delicate fashion, avoiding coarse language and graphic descriptions.

 

One would think that writing about another person’s suicide would be an invasion of privacy. In some ways, it can be. This is especially true for the suicide of someone we do not know. However, with a suicide that makes the public news, as the one with the “texting suicide case,” it is natural to have a reaction to it that would drive someone to put their impressions into verse. That said, most people do not see this as an invasion of privacy, but more of their reaction to the deaths.

 

One of the major reactions some people have to a suicide is trying to understand what a person was thinking that drove them to commit such an act. What were their final thoughts? The last thing they saw? This, too, is explored in some of the poems.

 

And for those who the author personally knew, such as an uncle, she writes the poem as a way to pay homage to her memories of that person. They are tributes, of sorts, honoring that person’s death in a respectable manner which a suicide is not normally given.

 

The topic of suicide itself is a very delicate and sensitive one for many people. It can also create feelings of horror and dread within a person, especially if they had discovered the body of a victim of suicide. However, in reading these poems, I discovered that they do not actually create for the reader a sense of “a person taking their life,” though it is hinted at. But it is written about in a way that would not be harmful to readers sensitive of such a topic.

 

This short collection of poetry is a thoughtful and touching tribute to those whose lives were lost to the trap of bringing it to an end by one’s own hand.  

 

 

Five stars

 

 

 

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.