A Book Review Of “All The Best” by Steve Wheeler

So many poetry books can be one shot wonders… perused then buried within those old dusty bookshelf graves. Then there are books that come along that irresistibly beckon for continual enjoyment and inspiration. Some may even offer sophisticated references as to how writing premiere poetry is really done. Behold…! All Of The Best” is THAT book.

This masterful collection from accomplished author, philanthropist, publisher, and retired university professor Steve Wheeler spotlights his most brilliant works from 2020-2023. Just shy of 300 pages, this book lavishly lives and breathes! It both whispers and shouts! It represents an epiphany of modern poetry… an absolutely fresh wind of wonders.

The names of chapters, portrayed in striking Latin and Greek terms such as “Vita et Mors” (Life and Death) or “Nepios” (Small Child), create lascivious layers of potent secrets laid out throughout the book that Wheeler has become so well known for.

Thunderous themes branch out into exuberant impressions to create a tempestuous tapestry of opulent observations. 

The theme of revering innocence of children always seems to remain closest to Steve’s heart. Of little babies, Wheeler writes “… your life is precious pure and new, heaven is made of ones like you” (Suffer Little Children). In “World Of Wonders” he displays a plethora of his impressive adventures traveling the world, yet humbly concludes with “… no wonder of the world could so assuage my darkest fears as the wonder of a new born child”. 

The poem Yasmina is a hidden gem. Yasmina is a pet hen that a young Syrian boy innocently and obliviously mourns the loss for in becoming a necessary dinner…. it truly represents the best of “the best”.

This crafty balance of his extensive experience, with an impassioned representation of the human condition, make up but one facet of the author’s dense repertoire. Wheeler possesses a penchant for assonance and alliteration like no other… a metaphor master supreme. Steve becomes a wizard of poetic tools and devices to be learned from and to celebrate with this massive monument to his talent.

He also repeatedly turns a delightful phrase with pointed lines like “I’m having the time of your life” (from Borrowed Time), or “I have a way with words and words have their way with me”.  (from The Poet).

His poems dance upon extensive topics of what he refers to in the book description as “love, faith, nature, war and peace, dreams and nightmares, fantasy, science, and travel”. 

He expounds on the ethereal to the absurd with seamless grace, navigates realms of pop culture and lost love, from divine revelations to everyday Joe observations, with a tactile turn of every dreamy page.

On being rich Wheeler writes “… he drank like a fish and slept like a cat, with golden cushions wherever he sat..” (On Top Of The World). Of related excessively privileged revelry, he reveals “… you pays your money, drinks your beer, but it’ll all end up in tears if your actions make you disappear from the eternal inventory.” (Gardening Leave).

Poems on the homeless read “… the earth shall inherit the meek” (Homeless People).

So many inner city issues and observations shimmer in light and dark shades here. The poem Urban Transgression is a sequenced ambitious concept work which always comes first to my mind with this book. Its performance quality, flow, and rhythmic conceptualization accentuate a delightfully frightful rouges gallery of everyday souls. It is an incredibly raucous rant about divergent directions of characters and classes that encapsulates the imagination.

Of war he records “…although grandfather bravely soldiered on, He never made it to the river Sonne” (Star Of Mons), “… the bar will be open till we’re all dead on the floor, and the last person standing will be standing no more” (What Are You Wearing For World War III). 

Of art, he rhythmically writes with wry musicality “Earth takes to the floor with the moon, Moving to the rhythm of the old Nep-tune.” (Music Of The Spheres). Of the environment “This is the final log for what it's worth, of our good ship planet Earth” (Still Writing As The Ship Goes Down).

As a man of God and sincere faith, Steve devotionally reaffirms his Christianity over and over successfully throughout. On the divine purpose he writes full of the spirit, “… they’ll never find life while His truth they deny”. 

Yet his watchful gaze also encompasses the entire picture as well. On misdirected churches he prays “… help us lord, to build a church where people love to flock, as they visit our museum, a hearse made out of rock.” (Stained Glass Avatars).

Of love sweet love he covers both ends of the fidelity fence, starting with everyday adoration “… when it’s all said and done, tell me what’s in your head, show me stories you read ,then take me to bed” (Give Me). 

Of domestic squabbles “Best of friends now two of a kind , you in your neck brace, and I in mine” (Fight Club), or “You’re the one that love (and hate) the very most”. He perfectly wraps darling love up in this beautifully ending sonnet couplet “For you, oh rise and setting of my sun, I cannot say how deep my love may run” (from the glowing love poem How Deep).

A comprehensive review of this magnitude could never be possible with the brevity of a simple blog like this. An entire book could be written about the utilization of Steve Wheeler's playbook of advanced executions. Dizzying amounts of essays could be recorded on studying the many incorporations of all the effective tools in his poetic tool belt. Antithesis, paradox, allegory, metonymy, etc… from the humorous to the sublime… at times both… this one has it all.

“All The Best” sits on my desk as an ever accessible roadmap of expression and application that I now and forever will refer to for inspiration in my own writing. It constitutes everything about the street poet soul I have always aspired to capture. 

This book is not only a reference guide of inspiration for writers. I simply believe it contains some of the greatest contributions to modern poetry to date. If you are a writer, or just simply a lover of entertainingly provocative and beautiful poetry … you need this book. Period. Ad Infinitum.

Matt Elmore

A Book Review Of “This Broken Home” by Brandon Adam Haven

A presence engulfs the room… a shadow of darkness unidentifiable save for immense gravity weighs down upon your weary soul. Yet beyond the darkness, a light of hope beckons close within your grasp… which shall you finally embrace?

This struggle of balance between dark and light is at the heart of “This Broken Home”, the newly published Wheelsong work of Brandon Adam Haven. A complete dark thriller exploring the darkest stygian depths of despair at the surface, an undercurrent of redemption lies at the heart of the book. Written with such an exemplary and exciting emotive spirit, this tension perpetuates the turning of the page to see what is next!

“This Broken Home” elevates emotional themes started within Haven’s last brilliant work “Into The Grey”. His life experiences overcoming crippling addictions, near death health issues, and diminishing personal loss fuel his poetry into a supernova like heat that often burns with every word. Haven’s effort is both captivating and relevant to anyone coping with this existence.

In addition to poignant poetry, the book explores haunting themes within three entertaining short stories as well. Adding a surprising dimension to the writers work, quick zingers such as “The Tale Of Marybelle Lynn” suggest shades of Edgar Allan Poe within a tragic haunting love story of a troubled man and a beautiful apparition. 

“The Orchard of Montery ” is a complete to be continued frightfest of a demonic scarecrow that harrowingly murders a family moving into a haunted house. Also, “The Cleansing Of Monieden” offers a quick tale of an island kingdom that celebrated its own health by drowning the disabled, only to have them return from the dead to vengefully return the favor. 

Haven’s ability to capture suspense by delightful yet frightening uses of characterization and detailed actions within extremely creepy settings make his macabre stories fabulously enjoyable.

His assembly of poems carry the book to even higher heights with offerings like “Where Time Froze”, which extends the metaphors of the book’s title with lines like:

This crumbling home so bare and amort

Succinct with frozen smiles and imputed faith 

They endure through time spoken softly

Denigrating to the core with silent decay

The use of words like “decay” “faded” and “grey” continually reflect the authors affected condition throughout the book in poems such as “Back Into The Grey”, “The Necropolis Of Solitude”, and “Lost In Time”.  The complexities of reconciling loss are explored in diverse angles as well in gems like “The Glowing Cinema” and “The Carousel Of Dreams”.

Havens poetic imagery and superlative emotional navigation continue to soar with ambitious forays into expression like “Far Harbor” and “”Amber Night”, the latter which glimmer with the following golden nuggets lines:

I dashed to earth the summer air

Charmed by light, whisper and motion

Let me dwell by the frenzied lair

As I continue forth my notion 

The succinct dark poetry breathes so heavily throughout this work, it almost supersedes the other more prevailing elements of hope. A redemptive spirit begins to take shape from the middle to the end of the book in such showstoppers as “Visions Of Angels”, “Scarlet Leaves”, and “Afraid Of Dying”.  

More than merely poems, Haven’s diverse turns captivate the reader with what the author no doubt experienced nearly dying upon a number of occasions . They come out of his own relations with life and death and all the shattering realms in between.

Stand out redemption poems such as “Awaken”, “The Amorist”, and “New Day” solidify an unseen foundation on which the author built the dark structure of this collection. The following phrases from “Awaken” suggest an ascent from the prevailing abyss…

I loathe rise and glow in such a glimmering shine

Love and hope, chisel away the stone of my heart

To many tears lately I’ve shed

Now for hopefulness to embark

In addition to the next level poetry and prose Brandon displays, the accompanying illustrations accentuate each poem and story. Pictures taken by the author himself provide a focused visualization into an image of what each work symbolizes. These images really carry the book, and excite the imagination.

“This Broken Home” not only illuminates Haven’s elevated progress with narrative and poetic forms, it also allows us an insight into even higher heights he has yet to achieve. Brandon’s is a completely original style that is not only enjoyable to read, but challenges the limits of our very souls with masterful expression and extensive  knowledge of the poetic craft.

For Brandon Adam Haven, this book represents just another riveting halt along a long winding road of original perspective and interpretation of what life has to offer… with many stops to come of awe-inspiring views of life along the way. These voluptuous vistas of future work will be well worth the wait, as Haven continues to grow and mature to the enjoyment of today’s modern poetry world.

Matt Elmore

You can purchase your copy of Brandon's new book by clicking on this link or by emailing Wheelsong Books.

Writing Italian & English Sonnets

 

In the battle of the bards concerning supersonic sonnets… let us consider the styles of Francesco Petrarch and William Shakespeare … progenitors of the Italian and English sonnets we use even today.

The intricacies of writing sonnet forms spans various variations that far exceeds the space of one blog. Here I expose the tale of the tape, if you will, in this contest of approaching Italian and English sonnets

The word sonnet comes from the Italian word sonetto, meaning “little song.”, and dates back to Italian courts of the thirteenth century, as well as the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. Italian sonnets became popular by the works of Francesco Petrarch (the above man on the left). Though he did not create the form, such popular poets as William Wordsworth, Elizabeth Browning, and Sir Thomas Wyatt came to use  it to splendid effect. 

The English sonnet of course was blown out of the water when set to pen by William Shakespeare  (the handsome fellow on the above right) at the end of the Elizabethan era in the late 1500s. English sonnets are most likely the simplest and most used of them all.

The most notable difference between Italian (Petrarchan) and English (Shakespearean) is the rhyme layout. 

The Italian sonnet is divided into two stanzas with a rhyme scheme of an octave (eight line stanza) of ABBAABBA and a sestet (six line stanza) of CDCDCD- or sometimes even CDECDE.

The English sonnet is divided into four stanzas with the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG… three quatrains (four line stanza) and a couplet two line stanza) Some alternative rhyme schemes you may like to give a shot could be ABAA CDDC EFFE GG or even ABBA ABBA CDCD CD. Changing up rhyme schemes with English sonnets makes for a fresh challenge, and can often turn up fantastic results you may not have come up with otherwise!

Both English and Italian sonnets are similar in that they are fourteen lines long, employ end rhymes, and are in iambic pentameter (unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable).

The English sonnet generally has ten syllables, though both sonnets generally allow for eleven as the poet feels it. French allow up to twelve! Why not…? C’est La vie.

Sonnets also contain a bit of a poetic touch known as a volta (or “turn” in Italian). The volta is essential to the poem, because it reverses or complicates the narrative of the first half of the poem. The meaning starts after the ninth line of an Italian style, and just before the end two lines (couplet) in English. See if you can identify them in the following works…

Here is an example of an Italian Sonnet by originator Petrarch himself!

O joyous, blossoming, ever-blessed flowers!
’Mid which my pensive queen her footstep sets;
O plain, that hold’st her words for amulets
And keep’st her footsteps in thy leafy bowers!
O trees, with earliest green of springtime hours,
And all spring’s pale and tender violets!
O grove, so dark the proud sun only lets
His blithe rays gild the outskirts of thy towers!

O pleasant country-side! O limpid stream,
That mirrorest her sweet face, her eyes so clear,
And of their living light canst catch the beam!
I envy thee her presence pure and dear.
There is no rock so senseless but I deem
It burns with passion that to mine is near.

                                       —

Here is an example of an English sonnet by the immortal bard William Shakespeare. Notice the similarities and differences.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

  And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
  As any she belied with false compare.

These two sonnet forms are easy to begin with as far as jumping into the sonnet form pool. There are a number of others, with various line and rhyme patterns. However, these two are the best ones to start on, equally potent and just as relevant as the other with the proper application.

Matt Elmore

The poet in the green hoodie

The very first image used to promote Invisible Poets was a guy in a black hoodie, crouching down on a the track of a railway bridge. It was meant to depict anonymity. We used this for some time to promote the Facebook poetry group. More recently, as we approach our first birthday, we've had a bit of a revamp. The poet in the green hoodie is perhaps, more striking an image. And it's versatile, because the green poet pops up everywhere in a variety of scenarios. It's an ironic statement on the back of an ironic idea. Meta irony, if you will...

Invisible Poets was a title Charlene Phare and I dreamed up when we set up the group in early February 2023. We didn't expect it to grow into a community of more than 25,000 members, but we did aim at trying to make those poets who felt they were 'anonymous' and unrecognised into more visible artists. To achieve this, we decided to offer opportunities on Invisible that could not be found elsewhere. 

There is now a Live Poets Society show 3 times a week, from the UK, USA and South Africa, which seeks to showcase the very best in poetry from postings exclusively inside the group. We seek not only to read out the best poems, but to perform them. The shows attract hundreds of viewers. 

A group blog was set up to promote ideas about poetry, and to support poets as they develop their craft. The blog features news and views, and a large percentage of the posts are dedicated to poetic devices and forms and how to use them. This is a form of mentoring for those who choose to read the blog, and it offers free education to anyone in the group, or indeed elsewhere in the poetrysphere.

Finally, in collaboration with Wheelsong Books, we have produced several anthologies to raise the profile of poets, enable many to achieve their first publications, and through a rigorous peer review system ensure that every poem that is published has gone through the checks and balances to be certified as great poetry.

The green hoodie poet will be seen more and more as time goes by, and as the reach and influence of Invisible Poets extends out across the poetry world.

Steve Wheeler 

Invisible Poets Anthology

Just so you know... Invisible Poets is celebrating its first birthday this week. The Facebook poetry group, which at the time or writing has over 25,000 members, was set up by Charlene Phare and Steve Wheeler on February 11, 2023. It has grown exponentially thanks to the marvellous Admin and Moderator team has remained safe, active and vibrant. 

To mark the first anniversary, the first Invisible Poets Anthology has been published - in paperback, hardcover and Kindle editions. We chose 350 poems to feature in the book. The selection process was quite rigorous, so the poems you read when you open the pages will be some of the best that currently exist on Facebook poetry groups. That's quite a bold claim, but I don't make it blithely. Here's the process...

First, only poems that have featured on one of the Live Poets Society shows were considered. To be performed on the show in the first place, a poem must stand out, be unique and have an emotional impact on the hosts who select the poems each week. The poems in the list are all special in their own ways. Secondly, from this list of more than 800 poems, only the best of the best of these were selected to be included in the book. The anthology poems are diverse in style, and eclectic in their subject matter. There is literally something for everyone in the anthology.

What is even better is this... for every book sold, whether from Amazon, or from one of the online stores such as Waterstones (UK), Barnes and Noble (USA) or direct from Wheelsong Books, a worldwide charity called Save the Children will receive the same donation. This is for children caught up in disaster areas or war zones. Save the Children provide food, medicine and medical care, clothing and shelter and education opportunities for children in crisis. Wheelsong Books has been proud to be associated with the charity for the last 2 years. 

So, this anthology is not only jammed packed full of wonderful, insipiring poetry in its 300 pages, it is also doing some good for little ones who are in desperate need. What is stopping you from buying one or more copies of this beautiful book?

Steve Wheeler

Image copyright by Wheelsong Books

Writing Fun Poems

Sometimes it’s a necessity as a writer to change your shorts. 

Writing fun poems (long or short) presents one particular genre that can cleanse palettes often desensitized to the sweet prospects of joy in humor. They can be a welcome change of pace! 

A few poetic forms work quite well for tickling the old funny bone. Click on the term to learn the particulars about them!

Edward Lear made the limerick popular in his “Book Of Nonsense”, published in 1846. It’s a short five line poem with a most musical rhyme flow. Consider this gem:

There was an old man on a hill,

Who seldom, if ever stood still;

He ran up and down 

In his grandmothers gown 

Which adorned that old man on the hill.

Not exactly a knee slapper I know… but it WAS 1846! Limericks take all forms, including those of the vulgar varieties about men from Nantucket and other such doggerel.

Another short short would be a monostitch, which could be a line verse in a larger poem, or simply a one line poem. Something like “Literary gnomes make their homes in a poem”… okay, this may be a monostich that does not exactly leave you in stitches, but you get the point.

A kenning can be a blast to use… it is a two word per line poem that describes something without ever saying what it’s describing… a short funny kenning for a child would be something like: 

ankle biter

lamp smasher

bug thief

crazy maker

heart warmer

A clerihew is a quick four line poem created by Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956)  who was so bored in his chemistry class he scribbled this out about Sir Humphrey Davy (inventor of sodium):

Sir Humphrey Davy

Detested gravy.

He lived in the odium

Of having discovered sodium.

A clerihew’s first two lines rhyme, the last two lines rhyme, and the first line starts with a name. Simple… but most effective for a fast funny!

Consider this one by Invisible Poet Lorna McLaren:

Boris Johnson

sang his own swansong

stammering while addressing the nation afflicted with verbal constipation

Or this one by Invisible Poet Ally Smith:

E.T.

Alien to me

Trying hard to contact home

But couldn’t find a telephone 

Of course you can write anything in free verse using metaphors and funny wordplay. The “anything goes” format of free verse is perfect for the silly, absurd, or just straight out funny truth. I once wrote a love poem called “The Love Wrestler” which compared a professional wrestler to my girlfriend. It had lunatic lines like  “headlock on my heart” and “let down in another town with an imaginary name on my pants”.

These are not the ONLY fun forms to write with, but they are a great place to start. That and a clean pair of shorts. 

Matt Elmore

Image by: Unsplash

#poetry, #writing, #funpoems