What We Leave Behind: Bloom & Grow is a collection of poetry about life, loss, and memories

 

Bloom & Grow

Peter J Donnelly

Alien Buddha Press, 2025

ISBN: 9798313441412

Ebook, 43 ppg.

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Bloom & Grow by Peter J Donnelly is not just a book of poetry; it is a book of memories. Of pets lost and people long gone. Of times spent enjoying meals and the company of others.

 

The book starts with memories of someone who never had pets. Why, the author supposes, is a mystery. We are presented with assumptions:

 

Was it the thought of a flap

on her back door,

saucers of food, milk

and water on the floor

of her kitchen with no utility area,

or heaven forbid, litter trays? (page 6)

 

Then the next poem is about a cat, Willow, that was once a part of the author’s life. It’s a sweet poem. Fur babies leave paw prints on our hearts long after they are gone.

 

The next poems are reflections of people who are now gone. The memories the author has of knowing them. The poem “The Morning of Your Funeral” on page 10 is about the arduous task of clearing away the things that belonged to a loved one. I have experienced such a thing, but my experience was not for the home of someone I was related to or someone I knew. It was a friend’s father, and as I did this, I noticed the calendar on the wall that was still on the month when he had been taken to the hospital, the records he probably enjoyed listening to, and the books he kept on shelves that he must have read or cited from time to time. All of those things were a part of this person’s life. So these lines in the poem were ones I understood:

 

Clearing your house was

like taking apart the pieces

 

of a completed jigsaw, but one that hadn’t

been recently done - the image

 

had been there for fifty years,

almost unchanged.

 

This poem makes me think about the things we leave behind after we pass away. Sometimes I wonder what will become of all of my own things. I already told my husband and kids that they are free to take of my stuff before passing it all on to other people in the family, but I always wonder about how hard such a task would be for someone who is essentially disposing of the things from a person’s life that MEANT something to them. Things that were important to them. How hard it must be to part with it all.

 

I am fortunate to have some things which once belonged to people no longer in this world, and I sometimes wonder how the people that owned them enjoyed them while still alive. Did my friend’s dad write letters at his desk, which is now in my bedroom? Did a friend often use a music encyclopedia which I now have in my living room, to look things up or for trivia?  

 

Are we ever attached to our possessions in the afterlife? I wonder about this too, because several years ago, my mom told me that she wanted all of my writing when I die, but she passed away first. I like to think she is able to enjoy all of my writing in spirit – even the boxes of writing that were left behind when I moved to Oregon. These thoughts came to me as I read the poem “Where It Hangs Now” on page 11, a poem which talks about a drawing that once belonged to someone which was “sandwiched between ivory paper,/its label folded over the top/of a cardboard window mat.” Here the author wonders if the original owner of this signed drawing would notice how it is now framed and:

 

we’ll never know what you think

of the frame I bought in Northallerton,

or the picture’s new home on the wall

of my entrance hall. It looks down

on your Chinese floor vase

and your small purple one

on the half moon table,

opposite the photo of you both

at Auntie H’s wedding.

I could say it’s as if you’re admiring it

but from the angle, it’s more like

your eyes are averted.

 

The title poem on page 13 is about two plant foods that had belonged to someone the author knew, whose plants he cares for now. Here he ponders:

 

but the one labelled Bloom

had less in it than the one labelled Grow.

Did you use more of it

or had you just had it longer?  

 

The author uses these thoughts as a comparison in how he cares for the plants and how discarding one after its use was a big moment for him, because it was “the first thing of yours I’ve thrown out.”

 

The other poems in this book are about reflections from the author’s life, how times have changed, as well as poems about food (I liked the one about honey). Sometimes the poem’s title answers a question the reader may have, or it states the thing the author won’t say in the poem.

 

Bloom & Grow is a collection of poems that I sincerely enjoyed reading. The poems in this book gave me a lot to think about, pondering the changing times just as the author does, while also reflecting on those once in my life who now exist only in my memories or their possessions I have in my home. The poems are written so well, drawing me in and taking me back to the past or on the streets of the United Kingdom. The poems in this book offer quality insights about our connection with people as well as attachments to things we leave behind. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading free verse poetry.

 

 

Five stars

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book as part of my digital subscription to Alien Buddha Press.

When Neighbors Feud: For the Sake of Brigid weaves a witch's spell of revenge into one of comeuppance and triumph

 

 

For the Sake of Brigid

Nora B. Peevy

Unveiling Nightmares, 2024

Ebook, 54 ppg.

ISBN: 979-8893795394 (Paperback)

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For the Sake of Brigid is a story of a neighborly spat unlike any other I have ever read. When it comes to two women who have their own particular preference of animals – Norah with her bees and Lydia with her horses – the war is on, with the poor horses being a part of the sacrifice! These feuding neighbors can’t seem to forgive and forget, but since it was the bees and horses that were the unfortunate victims, there is no forgiving or forgetting.

 

And little do they know that the same applies to the goddess, Brigid.

 

I absolutely LOVED how the stories of the Old Ways are woven into this story. They come alive in this story just as they are alive all around us.

 

Another thing I really liked about this story was how positively Norah’s witchcraft practice is portrayed, although there are moments of dark magic practiced. Yes, the part with the blood and chopping off the finger made me squirm, but I was very pleased to see the accuracy, consistency and true-to-lifeness of witchcraft portrayed in this story. There are so many stories out there where witches are portrayed in a negative light, complete with stereotypes and misconceptions. You won’t find any of that here!

 

But the darker side of what happens when you mess with a witch is shown in this story, too. The gore! The horror! This extreme horror story was brutal and relentless. It is not a story for the faint of heart. It is so well-written and well-told. The moral of this story? Don’t fuck with a witch!

 

The ending of this story was VERY satisfying and I really enjoyed reading it. It is a story that will long stay with me and it has certainly given me a new sense of appreciation for bees.

 

Five stars

 

 

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

Cringe-worthy poetry: Cringerotica offers poems on topics that make our skin crawl

 

Cringerotica

Soli

Wrong Publishing, 2024

Ebook, 26 ppg.

Preorder link

 

This book has the following content warnings:

Sexual content

Self harm

 

 

Despite the book’s title, not many of the poems in Cringerotica by Soli made me cringe. But they did make me squirm.

 

The poem "Desperate Pig begs shooting star for wings" (Page 3) was difficult to read, when the pig is being described as

 

"Pigs are smarter than dogs

–and more delicious."

 

and

 

"something clocks you as prey– your bellies are vessels of cured meat.

Your hams, waiting to be candied."

 

So many people do not see pigs as animals anymore; they see them as food, which is disturbing. I remember a time I was with a friend and we were checking out a pig we came across. I was admiring how cute the pig was while my friend said, "Now I'm hungry."

 

I do eat meat, but I love animals too much to see them as food. I would rather eat grains than animals. But this poem does more than show how meat-focused the human eye is on animals as food; it also shows the pig's plea for escape from a world in which he cannot grow old. In which he is born into a world where he will only be slaughtered.

 

I heard this cry for escape as I read these lines:

 

"do you know, before I was given a name I galloped through

these stars

unscathed. Before they picked out which of us was fit to eat I was a

borealis

with a name that could not be counted."

 

The poems in this short collection touch on other topics: Religion, capitalism, poverty. All topics overdone in literature, but when you read them here – in these words and in these poems – it is like seeing them in a new light. In this way, we come to think about them again and try to understand them again. And ask ourselves again, "How, and why, do these things suffocate us?"

 

At the same time, I also pick up on the author's rage at the rigors of society, as in here:

 

"They say I am too old to sit on Santa’s lap

But Santa’s just Dave with those damned eyes" (Page 10)

 

and

 

"They say I am too old to be Ms. America

But In my dream I steeze the judge

and put on what’s called

A chart topping performance" (Page 11) 

 

As well as rage against the bodies we are given when the author reveals that his most dire Christmas wish is this: "I ask him for breasts" and

 

"(I sigh) and think

of things God will not give me" Page 11)

 

The collection as a whole speaks volumes on such things, and more. Soli is a gifted poet unafraid to point out the fraud, the ridiculous, while also, at the same time, painting a world with a sure hand of certainty. Cringerotica is the kind of poetry collection that goes on long after reaching the end, with the author’s voice echoed in our footsteps as we traipse through a world we still struggle to piece back together.

 

 

Five stars

 

 

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