Have you ever wanted to hear Emily Dickinson's voice again or to read a newly discovered poem of hers? What if you could read a volume of verse so similar in style to that of Dickinson it made you wonder whether she were still alive today?
Dazzling with arresting style and blazing with spellbinding power, The Burning of the Doves and Other Poems is a five-alarm book singed with Dickinson's essence. The 45 searing works that comprise Doves all rage in their unflinching exploration of the darkest and of the most effulgent aspects of the human condition. Flaming with expertly chosen diction and fire-dancing with aurally flowing syntax, the relatable and nearly-all-classical poems that comprise Doves are both chocked full of meaning and set to leave an indelible impact, their themes both profoundly personal and profoundly universal.
Bucking today's trend of what is considered real poetry by modern elites, Doves takes the literary road almost universally untraveled today, a singular approach in keeping with what moved Dickinson most about poetry and its true mission.
To one of her "preceptors," Dickinson once put forth this definition of poetry: "If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way?" As was Dickinson's aim, the verses found in Doves seek to elicit deep, soul-trembling emotions in their readers. Written with a grace of style charged by electrifying life, musicality of phrase, and gorgeousness of sound, the poems in Doves, will leave readers contemplative, stunned, and, it is hoped, changed, sure signs of great art.
Pithy, accessible, and replete with surprise and/or poignant twist endings, Doves' verses accrue in power precisely because they are written to be relatable, to be understood. In Doves, readers will not find poems fit for slam battles nor inscrutable free verse. Rather, readers will light on a trove of exoteric jewels and gems, readily comprehensible verses fused with trenchant meaning, adorned in glittering style, speaking ever so tenderly, thunderously, and truthfully to the human condition.
While the intensely personal poems in Doves explore keenly and insightfully a range of traumas -- like singer/songwriter Adele's Grammy Award-winning album 21 -- the collection is ultimately an agent of hope. In addition to inspirational verses and passionate poems, Doves contains works that explore with impossible percipience the following: life; death; grief; pain; loss; sorrow; regret; shock; horror; nostalgia; memory; mental states; friendship; nature; peace; hope; tortured faith; time; and, eternity.
Included in the febrile first volume is the devastatingly poignant love poem "Blue Uranus," the profoundly calming "Peace, Pass the Time With Me," and the eerily mysterious "Allyn Johnson." Also included is the supremely tragic "My Dreams Are Sealed in Amber," the sui generis "The Numbers of Tomorrow," and much, much more, each poem seemingly more piercing, more penetrating than the last. Finally, the collection contains beautiful decorative artwork and a kinetic back cover that must be seen. Readers are encouraged to personalize their experience by choosing between the two available versions: With Love Poems Addressed to Males; and, With Love Poems Addressed to Females.
While Doves never claims to replicate perfectly Dickinson's voice, and while its refreshingly imaginative poems are truly "of their own culture," thus differing in signal ways from Dickinson's poetic yield, the notable similarities of style and of tone between the two cannot be denied; indeed, many of the pioneering poems in Doves do sound as if Dickinson could have written them. This single fact makes this white hot collection a must-read not only for fans of Dickinson, arguably one of America's two greatest poets, but also for all lovers of the genre.
