#free verse poetry

LIVE

Release Date: August 11th, 2020

Rating: ★★★

The Only Card in a Deck of Knives is a collection of rambling, free-verse poetry that is constantly changing and contradicting all within one poem. Written from the perspective of a twenty something year-old who has a terminal illness, she has the ability to speak on a love of life, dying to die, as well as society’s reaction to sick women and its habit of discrediting their symptoms and feelings.

One of my favorite things about this collection was the way that each poem felt like a stream of consciousness. Things followed a train of thought, like a game where each word or phrase might remind the reader of their next point, or the next thought. You could follow the ideas even as long-winded as each piece might appear. Not every poem will relate to everyone, and how could it when it’s written from a specific perspective that the rest of us can only try to empathize with, but some of the lines were absolutely profound and lyrical.

Thank you to Lauren Turner, Buckrider Books, and Edelweiss for this review copy.

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Saylor Rains

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