Doll God by Luanne Castle is a collection of poetry that is haunting and sometimes dark and yet hopeful speaking to your heart and soul. I’m no expert on poetry as most who read my blog know but I’m opening my heart to it and learning to experience it if that makes sense and hopefully others like me will do the same. I’m thoroughly enjoying delving more and more into the beautiful world of poetry.
This collection takes us on a journey through many emotions and stages like loss, sickness, marriage, divorce, and motherhood. The poems are very vivid and bring to life an image very clearly in your mind. Most of the poems deal with dolls whether they be beautiful or in decay and take us through some point in time bringing forth in us emotions that reflect our innermost thoughts that are never spoken aloud.
Like the author I love dolls. I used to collect porcelain ones and I had my walking doll that I idolized when I was younger. As I read through these poems I kept reflecting and imagining the lives of my old dolls and I think that’s what I liked so much about this collection. As a child your dolls always have these lives – sometimes better than yours, sometimes worse – but through our imagination we could go anywhere with them.
The poetry of Doll God speaks to the heart whether it be through dolls or the human condition. It makes you feel emotion whether good or bad and I think that’s what poetry is about. I think it’s important as well that a poem speaks to everyone differently. While I may not always get the meaning the author was trying to convey I do feel the emotions that are portrayed that lead me to either like a piece or not like it. For me, Luanne Castle’s collection spoke to me emotionally and that’s what this newbie looks for when reading poetry!
To end I’d like to share a favorite poem with all of you…
Calculating Loss
Birds have the number sense
to know when an egg in a nest
of five goes missing.
If you have four chairs in the kitchen you don’t have to count
to know
one has been taken away,
to realize one car
cools in the double garage.
Every day the world subtracts from itself and nothing is immune.
Not these pebbles from our walks along the lakeshore: pebbles you collected
in this jar which
remains half full,
though for some reason I think of it as overflowing.
(from Doll God by Luanne Castle)
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Dar, I am so glad that you loved the collection. I am enjoying it now, and really love it. That poem you shared is one of my favorites so far!
Thanks again for being on the first Poetic Book Tour! 🙂
It’s nice to see poetry getting some attention out here in the blogosphere.
This really does sound emotionally compelling! Lovely review, Darlene.
Darlene, thank you so much for your beautiful review. I love that you had a walking doll! A lot of people don’t even know what those are. I’m so glad my poems spoke to you on an emotional level. Best, Luanne
Luanne, you’re very welcome. I know what you mean – I mention a walking doll and people look at me funny. I loved that doll. I look forward to reading more of your work in the future.