REVIEWED by Fatima Aladdin
PTSD Poems to Slay Demons
Written by Robin L Harvey
A collection of poems that center around some of the most powerful of human experiences, emotions, and realizations.
In PTSD Poems to Slay Demons, the author maintains such a raw, honest, and compelling tone throughout all of the poems even as they vary in the messages and emotions they are trying to deliver. The poems on mental illness and child abuse are written with as much passion and heart as those about healing, letting go, and finding joy, which takes a lot of skill and dedication to pull through.
The author also does not shy away from calling things what they are and calling out society for its corruption, pedophilia, injustice, discrimination, and obsession with social media and fake status and all that is not real and all that should not be so proudly praised. The poems seem to lack a particular theme, some might find that deterring, but others might find it to add another layer of mirroring what the real world is really like.
The religious and historical symbols used across the poems merge so well with modern hashtags and mental issues, which ultimately seeks to portray the timelessness of human emotions and our connectedness across time and cultures. The book did feel a bit lacking to me, though, not for any lack of passion or a fault of the author, but the pages could have used some better formatting, or perhaps some imagery or art work could have brought the words to life even more impactfully.
The author has a very unique style, somehow the words feel like they could fit in without any trouble in both an old script or a modern magazine. There is rawness in art, tenderness in anger, forgiveness in accusations, and hope in hopelessness. I recommend this book to all lovers of modern poetry.
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