Love can be wholesome,Healthy and pure.It can also be deadly,Of this I am sure.I’ve experienced many,I’ve opened my door.Of all the love that I’ve heldThere’s one thing I know,Ain’t no one has lovedQuite like me… Jann Doe.EVERY LOVE is a collection of poetry covering my own experiences in love. From abuse, to affair, to healthy commitment, I’ve experienced the dynamics of love… even suicide has … experienced the dynamics of love… even suicide has played a part. The name ‘Jann Doe’ is to protect myself and my family from my own mistakes and history, given the parts of me that love has touched.
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I haven’t read a poetry book since my high school years. But that doesn’t mean I stopped liking it. On the contrary, every now and then I come upon a particular piece that captures my attention and echoes in my mind long after I’ve read it. Every love has many pieces that reverberates and ricochets inside the brain for days after you finish reading.
When I was asked to read “Every love”, I said yes, knowing I was long past due for a poetry book.
This one is the kind of poetry that – I felt – bears the soul, gives glimpses of the sweet and innocent, to the dark and ugly, to the hurt and joy of unconditional love.
“By not saying a word, You tell me all, By the look in your eyes, I’m ready to fall.”
But love isn’t all and life goes on, no matter what we go through and what events will stay with us, what will change us.
“We’re paper on water, we float till we’re full, Drown in the wet, the mess, We bend we fold, Fragile, We trust the hands that hold us, We must, We get squeezed and we crinkle, We get ripped, we tear, A steady state of uncertainty, What mood shall it be? What colors will mark us for eternity?”
I’ve read this part so many times, I’ve memorized it. Isn’t that true to us all?
“ Dress this way, dress that, with faces so polished. Realities masked, real emotions demolished. When life catches up, it’s a slap in the face. Because life doesn’t care about our popularity race.”
Oh, isn’t life so fickle? Don’t we care, even a little, how the world will see and judge us… only to realize, sometimes too late, that we spent too long pleasing others and forgetting that we live only once?
“If time were a bubble we held in our hand, Would it pulse or move, change in color or expand? Would we hold it dear, with love, knowing it’s precious? Or would we consistently poke and abuse, be vicious?”
I picked up this book one morning as soon as I woke – and every one was still asleep. It took me only thirty to forty minutes to read from start to finish, but I’ve gone back twice more since.
Poetry is a fine art that comes in many forms. Although I haven’t read a huge amount over the years, I’m definitely familiar with many of the famous poets, particularly from over ~150 years ago. This month, I picked up a newer artist and joined a blog tour to experience something different than I do with my usual reading habits. The title of this collection, Every Love, is a clear expression of the emotions one woman feels throughout a lifetime of pain, regret, happiness, tough decisions, happiness, and confusion. Artist Jann Doe is new to me, but her voice feels familiar because she’s nailed the style and tone that many poets often struggle with achieving. Kudos to her for showing me an old soul’s point of view.
Poetry is not all rhymes and stanzas. It our digital age, authors like Doe can take advantage of modern publishing advances to add photos, fonts, formatting, and interactive collections. That’s what you’ll find with Every Love, including things like forbidden love, healthy love, self love, and more. I enjoyed how the author breaks down the collections into smaller and smaller groupings, some related, others not so much on the outskirts. But when you put yourself in the narrator’s or protagonist’s shoes, it becomes more obvious.
There is a strong voice here. From rage to reverence, the words evoke passion more than anything else. Passion to be heard. Passion to share the truth. Passion to apologize. Passion to convince someone to change his or her mind. In forms of literature like poetry, there is a freedom to express those emotions in a multitude of ways. I found these collections easy to read but also complex and dynamic in terms of syntax and structure. I switched the iPad into landscape and portrait mode to see if all the poems laid out differently. Whether intended or not, that aspect of a poem is often where you’ll find hidden layers. Everything is important from vocabulary to punctuation to relationships inside the words. Doe has done a wonderful job conveying all of it through her technique.
For me, Simple Love stood out the most. Based more on ‘questions’ rather than ‘statements,’ it offers a powerful repetition and back-and-forth within the messages. I’m glad I took the time to re-engage with this medium, and Jann Doe, whoever she is, has lots of talent. Thanks for helping some of us open our minds a little more to the beauty in the world… some of which might not seem so beautiful all the time.
I am a huge fan of poetry, so when the opportunity to read Every Love came up, I jumped at the chance. Poetry is a very subjective art, and very personal for the writer.
I am absolutely in love and in awe of every word written by Jann Doe. Her words struck my heart, and I related to so much of what she said. I haven’t felt this emotionally connected to words in a very long time. I’m struggling to write this review because all I can think to say is that this is just such a beautiful collection of poetry.
I went back and read this a couple of times. I want to write a much longer review. This was just so soul-baring…every kind of love. Healthy love, unhealthy love, self-love…every piece spoke to me. I couldn’t even pick a favorite because they were just all so real.
I know this isn’t my best review, I wanted to be more in-depth with it…but I’m just in such awe, that I can’t even get my words together. I highly recommend reading and re-reading this beautiful collection of poetry. You won’t regret it.
* I recieved a complimentary copy of this book as part of a blog tour with Digital Reads Blog Tours*
Find this review and more on my blog: https://www.jessicabelmont.wordpress.com
Every Love is a book of poems that read like a life journey. I was honestly surprised how meaningful and real they felt. You can tell that the author really put her personal experience in these poems and they were not just generalized comments. There were some of the poems that really resonated with me.
“A mind full of clutter,
Emotions a mess.
Unsure of reality,
Can’t slow down,
Too much stress.”
Every love has 9 sections for all kinds of love: Young Love, Forbidden Love, Deadly Love, Obsessive Memories and Deams, Wrongful Love, Simple Love, Healthy Love, Luscious Love, and Self Love.
If you enjoy poetry then I think you really need to check this out. This is the first poetry book I have found in years that feels real and not hey look this is popular.