Review: Poems and Essays with a Transcendental Feel
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 21, 2014
“Collection of Poetry and Prose: From Young Mystic” is just what it says—a compilation of loosely related pieces about a range of subjects, from faith to education, all with a Transcendentalist feel. There are poems about Sitting Bull and the acorn that becomes the oak, as well as about essays about Plato and changing your vibrational frequency. The author cites his inspiration as being urged to climb the mountain within by God, and his inspiration from Wordsworth, Emerson, Campbell, and others is evident within the text.I enjoyed some of the poems and essays and their gentle, positive message about faith and change, but ultimately this collection fell a little flat for me. The formatting, as others have mentioned, is very distracting—with everything centered, it’s sometimes hard to distinguish whether you are in an essay or a poem. The title should also be at the top of the page, not disconnected from the text below it. I also wished the collection had had more structure to tie everything together—I feel the author’s ultimate message could have been better conveyed with the pieces grouped in a certain way, or somehow explained more, as some of it is very vague. The cover’s invocation of the Frost’s “The Road Less Traveled” does represent the collection well, however, and I would recommend this to readers who enjoy poetry and essays dealing with New Age-type thought and themes.