A Lover’s Will by Mahiraj Jadeja

A Poetry, 2016 by Olympia Publishers, 62 Pages

What I Didn’t Like:

Grammar and punctuation get a lot of free reign in poetry, I’m the first to admit that. However, in my opinion, those decisions to break rules need to be intentional. In this poetry collection it feels like it was a case of the poet being unaware. It feels unedited, rather than feeling like a choice.
Line breaks. I’m a fan of line breaks in a poem. I like when the white space and the shape of your poem tell a story as much as your word choice does. This poetry feels paragraph-driven.
Lack of emotion. I didn’t connect with any of these poems in a meaningful way. No lines stand out to nme, no themes felt bigger than the moment.

Common theme. I like when a poetry anthology centers around one common theme. This one chooses love and the forms love can take as it’s muse. Good choice.
Fast read. Poetry collections are always fun because they don’t require a time commitment to enjoy them. You can get through a poetry collection pretty quickly and then, hopefully, think about them for a long time.

Poetry fans who believe the poem is more about word choice than white space or shape

Lack of emotional connection, grammatical errors, and missing line breaks make this problematic for me but reviews are subjective and other readers may (and do) feel differently.