First things first, the cover is something to look at, twice. Simple, yet full of texture and vibrancy it comes off as something thought-out and identifies the book. The second thing that I loved was the title: “For Poetry’s Sake“, both for the implication and the pun (I assume).
Once you open the book there is a small, yet, very cute dedication to us, the readers that makes us like the book B.T. Harris (the author) without reading a single poem. Very nice. The Acknowledgements just increase the admiration, and opens us up to the noble cause of the book. Charity.
Epic poetry is something very unusual to find around these days, and one would expect it to be hard to read, but Harris opens up with gripping verses of battle and blood, forcing the vivid imagery directly to the readers mind while feeling the descriptions as the verses smooth pass.
The stories although poetical, don’t feel like such, but you can easily read the rhymes and forget them, because they tell fascinating tales of adventure and action.
Human nature, will and integrity are put to the table and praised while showing how weak the human spirit is to temptation, something that you do not read very often now-a-days, and serves as a great reminder of the virtues that are worth it, and the attributes of life such as love, hate, jealously, death and the human mind.
B.T. Harris gives us some punchers with quick and powerful rhymes that make us breathe and read them again, like these verses from the poem “Mental”:
“My only prayer is to live and love
Godless probably, spiritual maybe
But shackled like a cage around a dove
Blood on my hands, prevent me despair!
Tears burn my cheeks like liquid fire
My lungs cannot contain much air“
Simply GORGEOUS!
B.T. Harris has a tremendous skill in making the reader place him or herself in the shoes of the character and force him or her to see and feel what the character is going through, taking you through a roller-coaster of jaw-dropping verses, that sometimes get calm and thoughtful.
It’s a pleasant journey. One that we as readers want to repeat again, and again, and tell about it, brag even to our friends, due to it’s depth, the intensity and the lightness of the whole work.
This is one book that has to become a reference, for poetry’s sake. AMAZING! POWERFUL! GRIPPING! Worth the time and worth repeating.
Favourite poems:
The Grimwald, (the tale is AMAZING! TOP! 5 stars)
Mental
Prose Duology
Tribute to Dinlas- Greek God of Hate
Tribute to Tanatos- Greek God of Death
Scribble's Worth 