An autobiographical poetry and art book, heartaches' poems are as universal as they are personal. The poems are conceived as flashpoints of heartaches that reflect painful moments in the author's life.
Growing up gay, biracial (half-white and half-black), liberal and agnostic in small-town Texas imbued Donovan Lord's life with a mountain full of heartaches. Told through poetry, heartaches revisits many painful moments in the life of the author from heartbreak, to suicide, and from racism to homophobia, heartaches reflects the various means of pain that the author has endured over a 25 year period.
Heartaches also features Donovan Lord's artwork and photography in conjunction with each poem to elevate and complement the emotional experience of the book.
An introspective, innovative debut, heartaches reminds us of the transformative power of emotional pain and the indomitable human spirit.
This book is one for anyone who can relate to, at once, the unique and ubiquitous nature of the issues that heartaches addresses. Readers will finish this book not only knowing the journey of the author's life but with a better understanding of themselves and by promoting the healing of heartache of one's own.
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[like your arms / like your heart / like your feet / or any part]***
(@8squareP, 23 April 2019, 116 pages, copy from @8squareP and voluntarily reviewed)
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I enjoyed the subject matter of the poems in this collection. Lord writes about subjects that are close to my heart and I can relate to such as lost love, having suicidal thoughts and other types of emotional pain. I could relate to an extent with poems about homophobia even though I must be one of the few gay people who have never experienced this first hand. I loved the art-work and photography. These were impressive and deserved a whole book on their own. What let Heartaches down was the fact nearly all of the poems are written in rhyming couplets. A poem does not need to rhyme, some of the best don't and often a weak rhyme can completely ruin a poem. I've read a lot of very old poems that use rhyme in such a subtle way it doesn't register when you read the poem. You only notice the rhyme on close inspection of the work and sometimes not unless someone points it out to you. Unfortunately, the rhyming couplets used in Heartaches are obvious and jarring and in some cases detract from the purpose of the poem. The poems could have been so much stronger without the rhyming couplets.