Violet
Sabrina Simon
Gatekeeper Press (2022)
ISBN: 978-1662928123
Reviewed by Rachel Deeming for Reader Views (10/2022)
Sabrina Simon’s poetry and prose snippet collection, “Violet” is one which is certainly not lacking in introspection, as would be expected of poetry which states it discusses love and relationships.
In this gathering of romantic ruminations, as a reader, you will have the highs and lows of Simon’s experiences of love. These vary from descriptions of opening encounters through to analysis of the dynamic of signals and what they might mean in terms of establishing attraction, through to the feelings once a relationship is happening, with its sensuality and depth of contact, both physical and emotional.
But despite this being a very personal reflection, there is much in Simon’s words with which to relate. As a reader, I found a commonality of experience in the situations she expressed and she was able to articulate clearly what is actually, and ironically, the murkiness, the uncertainty of love.
There were some poems that were stronger in content and that I thought had a depth of meaning more powerful than others in the collection: “Mindplay” is about seducing the mind of her lover, but is incredibly sensual in its depiction of this, it having an eroticism that is more resonant than other poems concerned with making love; “Love Potion” which lists, like a recipe, the ingredients for love which are intuitively observed; “Sad Truths”, a poem about the inequality that can exist in a relationship, or be the cause of it to break down. One of the prose extracts, “Quality Time” is wonderfully evocative in its briefness of the rightness and comfort of a relationship, shown in the every day.
There is rejection, uncertainty, romance and resolution in the pages of “Violet” and the poems are successful in relating to their reader the difficulties of finding the right person, whether they are God gifted or coincidentally encountered. It provides the means for anyone navigating the sometimes treacherous world of romance to find their own feelings reflected and written about with clarity, the recognition of these feelings in others acting like a soothing balm and perhaps, presenting the reader with validation in that they are not alone in feeling this way.
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