Book Review: Speak, Heart! by Charly Wilde

I don’t review poetry, as a general rule. Every now and again, someone will contact me requesting a review – I usually politely point them to my review criteria, apologize for being unable to help, and move along with my day. The reason I don’t review poetry is not that I don’t enjoy reading it; I quite do. Rather, it’s because poetry is so personal an expression that I find it difficult to review it. Poems either speak to me, or they don’t – and usually, whether they do or not is a direct function of their subject matter and the goings on in my own life. I can read books across genres and moods, but if I’m not in a place of direct alignment with poems, I find it difficult to read them with any degree of satisfaction (let alone with any ability to objectively evaluate their merits).

Given that, it is surprising that a poetry review made it onto my blog. But when I was contacted by Charly Wilde, the poet, I found something in her emails that caught (and held) my eye. From there, I turned to her volume of poems, and was equally impressed. Like many a poetry book, this is a slim volume with deceptively grand heft. It is a series of moving selections about life and love and the strength of hearts. Ms. Wilde has a lovely way with language. She has a talent for capturing complex emotions and emotional states and describing them with deceptively simple language – it makes the power behind the words pour off the page…

Perhaps some of the resonance I felt for these words lies in the background of the woman who composed them. In reading her brief bio, I learned that she, too, walked away from a corporate career that she thought she wanted but that turned out to be not altogether what she had hoped – or needed. I’ve certainly been there, and it may be that some of the connection I felt to her words was a product of an echo to my own life. Regardless, the words moved me, and I responded to the strength and pain and growth that lay beneath them. This is a talented author, and one you should keep an eye on…

To learn more, visit Ms. Wilde at her website. My review copy was graciously provided by the author.