I wear these marks well,
my kisses from heaven
and my brushes with hell.
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A raw poetry-prose hybrid, The Lithium Chronicles dives into the earnest and dark feelings that many share but struggle to articulate.
Raw. Fierce. Brave. Brazen. Honest.
Poet Nicole Lyons is a force to be reckoned with. She is unafraid of harsh language and imagery, and is open-hearted in all of her revelations. Fans of short-form, Instagram-style poetry will savor Lyons’s visceral snapshots of love, lust, and mania.
Some examples of poems that particularly stand out include the blunt and insightful “Whore” (“I am a whore, and I know I am/because I was given that label/by an angry man after I shared/his time and sipped at a seven/dollar coffee while we discussed/the weather and why the coastal/residents of British Columbia/should probably think about/packing up and moving inland”) and the inspiring “The Ties that Bind” (“But the knot is weak/tied with oily fingers attached to hands/upon hands casting stones/at my feet”). Lyons plays with line breaks in clever ways, especially in her shorter poems like “Good Work” and “In the Shadows”; she has a penchant for splitting thoughts and phrases for the most successful impact.
My only gripe with this volume is the lack of flow between the poetry and prose. While the terse poetry focuses largely on sex and romance in all of its beautiful and less beautiful forms, the final third of the book, pulled from Lyons’s diary, feels distinctly separate. Her diary focuses on the struggles of her bipolar affective disorder through the lens of medication: over-medication, under-medication, a loving husband picking up her prescriptions, and a villainous pharmacist causing her headache after headache. Her interactions with this pharmacist consume a significant portion of the diary entries and while it is an awful saga that I’m sure many folks with mental illness have faced, it does not mesh with the lusty verses only a few pages prior. But one thing comes through in all parts of The Lithium Chronicles: Lyons’s earnest, powerful voice, which makes the entire volume well worth reading.
I'm a poet working in the publishing industry; through these roles, I'm constantly discovering small presses, new authors, and cool projects that often don't receive the attention they deserve. A good, objective review is maybe the best advertising that a book can receive and something I can offer.
Raw. Fierce. Brave. Brazen. Honest.
I wear these marks well,
my kisses from heaven
and my brushes with hell.
Nicole Lyons is a force of nature disguised as a writer, a social activist, a voice for the downtrodden, and a powerful poet with a delicate touch. She is a bestselling author and an award- winning poet. Her essays and poetry have been featured in numerous online magazines and print editions. view profile
Published on December 21, 2019
Published by Indie Blu(e) Publishing
20000 words
Genre: Poetry
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