I'm now a book reviewer

(and thank you for sharing the link!)

Congrats, Poet! I'll check it out.

Well done!
I also enjoyed (and bookmarked) the blog space.

That was a fair and thorough review, Rob. I felt like I'd spent some time leafing through the book. Well-done!

Very cool, is what I think. Very cool, indeed.

Awesome. Well written.

How do you come up with a book to review?

Rob,
The piece is certainly well-written and I wonder at the educational/reading level of POD People's readers. It is going to lose some people with your use of certain words/phrases but, those folks might not be reading here anyway so its a nit.
I am a little confused about something. The majority of the review seems to be aimed, as crits do, at pointing out the short-comings of the book and, to a lesser degree, some of the poems. Yet, you state:

But, most importantly, are the poems worth reading? Do they move the reader?

Overall, my answer is a qualified 'yes'. I found a number of the poems to be beautiful and moving; the poets have addressed in a variety of ways a range of emotions and issues that all relate to love. Again, no one will thrill to every poem in any collection, especially if there is any variety to it. And there is sufficient variety to this collection, within the bounds of its stated focus, for readers to find their favorites.

Click to expand...

As a reader of reviews, it might be better to simply pick one side of the fence and write from there. I'm left with this wonderful quote, surrounded by very little to support why you feel that way. In this regard, I would be skeptical about purchasing the book.

Now, my caveat. These are just nits from a nitwit. Again, it is very well written and I'm sure that, if you don't already, you have a great career as a reviewer ahead of you. I'm only pointing out what I (a singular opinion, not representative in any way of an audience any larger than the one sitting here in Florida in front of my laptop) took from the review. I'm a little gunshy of doing any crits these days, so take from this what you will.

If you're intent on doing reviews, I'm almost done with my first draft of my first novel. It'll be a mere 120k words, if you find you're bored, lol.

Congrats on the review being published, btw.

Hi Rob,

I read your review, and it left me feeling a bit "not a book I would go out of my way to read". I don't know if that is what you intended. The review is bracketed with positive comments on the poems themselves, but the body of the review is not so supportive. I wonder if the balance really reflects your experience of reading the book.

Having 'masterpiece' on the cover and 'collectors item' in the preface are a bit over the top. An editor would have removed them before they saw the light of day. However, perhaps I would have ignored them had nobody pointed them out to me. No, that's not true, I would have seen them. They reminded me of an English student who was sent to me because he wanted to write short stories and I was the only published person his teacher knew. The first line of his story was, "Words can't describe how I felt when the ..." Getting rid of that first line was loud and clear on the agenda but the fellow was convinced of their truth and wouldn't hear of their removal.

In this case I thought perhaps the poet was a young bloke who hadn't quite got it when it comes to using words like 'masterpiece' on the front cover. However, I checked his blog and found that's not the case.

I would also have appreciated a few lines that appealed to you from the poetry itself. Your one example is for the opposite. So I am sitting here thinking of some crazy love poem lines, such as "I would like to find you in the shower and chase the soap for half an hour", or "She couldn't be, my well tooled love, a millimeter cuter". Trouble is, I've got an idea that the poems in this book take themselves much more seriously.

I suppose Mr Kei hasn't made a sale in my direction. On the other hand, had I not read your review I would not have John Fuller's lines rolling through my head,
"I'd like to have you in my power,
and see your eyes dilate,
I'd like to have your back to scour,
and other parts to lubricate."

Ah, love poems. Masterpieces, every one of them. Collector's items even.



Kim

Wonderfully written review Rob. I think you touched on all the right points. And it was so smooth, so conversational, that even if I didn't know you, I would've felt I knew you a little from this review. I liked it very much. It's something I've wanted to do for some time, but haven't made any attempts ..something to strive for. Really well done!!!

OK, so you do a review and then all these other people review your review. How would it go to post a review and then each post is a review of the one before it? How many generations could it spawn before everyone tired of it?

I thought it was a good review of the actual content. I think your main criticisms were of the layout. It could, at the start, be misleading into thinking the actual content was poor, but I certainly changed my mind when reading further on.

I admit though, I do get sick of reading about books that get glowing reviews and on purchase I find I simply do not agree. It makes a refreshing change not to see the 'same old, same old,' churned out.

Congratulations!

Well Rob,

well done, hope you get to do a lot more.

Why not review mine? It's published through Lulu.

Great job, Rob.

Hey...job...Rob. I'm a poet.

Bravo! Very thorough review, and I knew exactly what you meant about the poems not being accessible, artistically speaking.

Accessibility is an often overlooked element of reviews regarding many art forms. Art for arts sake is something that should only be done with intent, and not by accident.