Review: Life Games by Trine Daely

I must admit I'm not a fan of poetry but this book stood out for me as it reminded me of my mother, so I gave it a go. I am very pleased that I did. The collection spans a number of years from 1989 - 1998 , the poetry, whilst in places dark, shows glimpses of the author's hope and often weaves these two together in a remarkable way, like in the poem Orphan's Lighthouse, my favourite from this collection.

From Smashwords.com

I personally find it very difficult to communicate my feelings on poetry, as I believe it's interpretation is individual to the reader, so instead I have selected some of the parts that spoke most deeply to me, these are only extracts the full poems are much longer:

Lean into the wind

and wed with a nod

Your body turns cold

as you dote on the sod

            Wendigo

He showed to me the future,

he showed to me the past

Where the greatest knowledge could be found

and the greatest treasures stashed.

          Down to the River 

I lay waiting, fearfully at times

he is coming tonight

Like he does every night

he waits while my candle burns

he waits in the kitchen

at every corner I turn

He is quiet but

his laughter

rings loud in my head.

He is the one that you

have always known

yet come to know that

you can never really know him

             He is the darkness 

The fire that killed us moves on in strife

now we rejoice, for in death we found life.

        Orphan's Lighthouse

 As I have said before I am very glad I took the time to read this, as I usually skip past poetry collections. It is well written and contains some beautiful and emotional pieces. I debated weither to rate the work due not to it's quality or my enjoyment, but because perceptions of poetry are very individual. In the end I decided to rate it and would implore others, who maybe are not regular poetry readers, to take a chance on something a bit different and to share how the poems made you feel. 

The book is currently discounted to only 99 cents (59p in the UK) from Smashwords. To take advantage of the offer click here and enter coupon code EX45P at the checkout. This code will work until 24th May 2012.