Our Lives in Verse, Everyday Poetry
Book Reviews
*Review of Our Lives in Verse
California Bookwatch: March 2023
James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Diane Donovan, Editor
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive, Oregon, WI 53575
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/calbw/mar_23.htm#poetry
The Poetry Shelf
Our Lives in Verse: Everyday Poetry
Ann Brubaker Greenleaf Wirtz
www.anngreenleafwirtz.com
WestBow Press
www.westbowpress.com
9781664276390, $9.95 Paper/$2.99 ebook
https://www.amazon.com/Our-Lives-Verse-Everyday-Poetry/dp/1664276394
Diane Donovan, Editor Midwest Book Review:
Our Lives in Verse: Everyday Poetry pays tribute to common, ordinary life in a simple yet evocative manner that translates to its accessibility and understanding by poets and non-poets alike.
Here, the trappings of literary strength lie in both a lifelong familiarity with and appreciation of poetry and Ann Brubaker Greenleaf Wirtz's desire to comprehend, capture, and embrace everyday experience. Her fine art creates a work that both celebrates poetic efforts and remains vivid and easily understandable to her readers. She achieves this with poems that reflect experience through the lens of her faith, adding a spiritual component that will especially reach readers on similar paths to linking everyday experience with spiritual reflection.
There's a fine line between poem and prayer, which Wirtz traverses with a delicate step. Some of her writings are more spiritual letters to God, as in 'Our Community, a Prayer in Verse': "Regardless the generation,/Challenges are ever present,/For certainly the way is never easy,/But good-hearted faith and the/Determination to succeed do prevail./Thank You, Dear Lord, for our town,/A vibrant refuge, life-giving with hope,/For our place and time in its history, and/Upon this, our sheltering home..."
Others celebrate ordinary wonders, such as a summer's drive in the country, captured in 'The Hay Bales of Summer': "My car made its way/Down the winding road,/A lazy jaunt to see the sights/Of farmland and pasture/In the afternoon light.../Garden flowers were rioting,/And farm fields flourishing,/When startling my gaze/As they came into view,/Were hay bales to frankly amaze."
In representing moments of everyday life and times and injecting these with expressions of gratitude and wonder, Wirtz pays tribute not only to God, but to life. Libraries seeking literary works that remain true to poetic form and description while celebrating miracles of place and time will find Our Lives in Verse: Everyday Poetry a fine choice that holds the ability to reach literary and non-poetry readers alike.
*Review of Our Lives in Verse
Post by Moo Reny » 11 Dec 2022, 14:04
[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Our Lives in Verse" by Ann Brubaker Greenleaf Wirtz.]
5 out of 5 stars
Our Lives in Verse: Everyday Poetry by Ann Brubaker Greenleaf Wirtz is a book of poems that has 74 pages and 3 sections. The first section has 13 poems, the second section has 8 poems, and the third section has 14 poems. The book starts with a part that tells readers how the book came to be.
This is a book of poetry that arose from the author's desire to clear her mind about everyday life, and as she began to put her experiences on pen and paper, she documented her journey through poems, in which we can see many things such as her aspirations, fears, and losses; would you like to know what they are? Read this book to find out.
I must commend the author's poem-writing skills. I hardly read books about poetry, but seeing how creative and well-written this poem was, I was glued to the very end of the book. In the months of the year part of the book, I love how the author explored seasons because these are ordinary things that we just see, experience, and forget about, but the author saw these various seasons and got creative with them by writing poems on them; this is truly amazing, and her description of scenes was also very vivid. I could visualize the different scenes as I read.
This book covers themes such as seasons and family, and in the first section, my favorite poem was the April poem, in which the author began creatively and simply inserted one of the most beautiful lines of poetry talking about the crucifixion of Jesus, who is the reason for celebrating Easter, and she ends it with people understanding that Jesus is the essence of Easter; she also brilliantly described him as a flower. I like how she celebrated each month and the things it held. There were many poems I could relate to as well, especially the poem "And then I thought." It made me think about the many things I thought I'd be and ended up not being.
There's nothing I can say I dislike about this book, but at some point it got me thinking if the author wrote poems for every event in her life; the June poem was emotional. For me, it made me see how quickly time passes, and there was a prayer for America, which I consider selfless, and it demonstrated love for her country, which is biblical to pray for our country. Therefore, I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars. It is professionally well-edited, and I found no errors while reading it.
I recommend it to readers who love poetry and people who like to think deeply about natural phenomena; they'll relate well to this book.
Book Reviews
*Review of Our Lives in Verse
California Bookwatch: March 2023
James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief
Diane Donovan, Editor
Midwest Book Review
278 Orchard Drive, Oregon, WI 53575
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/calbw/mar_23.htm#poetry
The Poetry Shelf
Our Lives in Verse: Everyday Poetry
Ann Brubaker Greenleaf Wirtz
www.anngreenleafwirtz.com
WestBow Press
www.westbowpress.com
9781664276390, $9.95 Paper/$2.99 ebook
https://www.amazon.com/Our-Lives-Verse-Everyday-Poetry/dp/1664276394
Diane Donovan, Editor Midwest Book Review:
Our Lives in Verse: Everyday Poetry pays tribute to common, ordinary life in a simple yet evocative manner that translates to its accessibility and understanding by poets and non-poets alike.
Here, the trappings of literary strength lie in both a lifelong familiarity with and appreciation of poetry and Ann Brubaker Greenleaf Wirtz's desire to comprehend, capture, and embrace everyday experience. Her fine art creates a work that both celebrates poetic efforts and remains vivid and easily understandable to her readers. She achieves this with poems that reflect experience through the lens of her faith, adding a spiritual component that will especially reach readers on similar paths to linking everyday experience with spiritual reflection.
There's a fine line between poem and prayer, which Wirtz traverses with a delicate step. Some of her writings are more spiritual letters to God, as in 'Our Community, a Prayer in Verse': "Regardless the generation,/Challenges are ever present,/For certainly the way is never easy,/But good-hearted faith and the/Determination to succeed do prevail./Thank You, Dear Lord, for our town,/A vibrant refuge, life-giving with hope,/For our place and time in its history, and/Upon this, our sheltering home..."
Others celebrate ordinary wonders, such as a summer's drive in the country, captured in 'The Hay Bales of Summer': "My car made its way/Down the winding road,/A lazy jaunt to see the sights/Of farmland and pasture/In the afternoon light.../Garden flowers were rioting,/And farm fields flourishing,/When startling my gaze/As they came into view,/Were hay bales to frankly amaze."
In representing moments of everyday life and times and injecting these with expressions of gratitude and wonder, Wirtz pays tribute not only to God, but to life. Libraries seeking literary works that remain true to poetic form and description while celebrating miracles of place and time will find Our Lives in Verse: Everyday Poetry a fine choice that holds the ability to reach literary and non-poetry readers alike.
*Review of Our Lives in Verse
Post by Moo Reny » 11 Dec 2022, 14:04
[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Our Lives in Verse" by Ann Brubaker Greenleaf Wirtz.]
5 out of 5 stars
Our Lives in Verse: Everyday Poetry by Ann Brubaker Greenleaf Wirtz is a book of poems that has 74 pages and 3 sections. The first section has 13 poems, the second section has 8 poems, and the third section has 14 poems. The book starts with a part that tells readers how the book came to be.
This is a book of poetry that arose from the author's desire to clear her mind about everyday life, and as she began to put her experiences on pen and paper, she documented her journey through poems, in which we can see many things such as her aspirations, fears, and losses; would you like to know what they are? Read this book to find out.
I must commend the author's poem-writing skills. I hardly read books about poetry, but seeing how creative and well-written this poem was, I was glued to the very end of the book. In the months of the year part of the book, I love how the author explored seasons because these are ordinary things that we just see, experience, and forget about, but the author saw these various seasons and got creative with them by writing poems on them; this is truly amazing, and her description of scenes was also very vivid. I could visualize the different scenes as I read.
This book covers themes such as seasons and family, and in the first section, my favorite poem was the April poem, in which the author began creatively and simply inserted one of the most beautiful lines of poetry talking about the crucifixion of Jesus, who is the reason for celebrating Easter, and she ends it with people understanding that Jesus is the essence of Easter; she also brilliantly described him as a flower. I like how she celebrated each month and the things it held. There were many poems I could relate to as well, especially the poem "And then I thought." It made me think about the many things I thought I'd be and ended up not being.
There's nothing I can say I dislike about this book, but at some point it got me thinking if the author wrote poems for every event in her life; the June poem was emotional. For me, it made me see how quickly time passes, and there was a prayer for America, which I consider selfless, and it demonstrated love for her country, which is biblical to pray for our country. Therefore, I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars. It is professionally well-edited, and I found no errors while reading it.
I recommend it to readers who love poetry and people who like to think deeply about natural phenomena; they'll relate well to this book.
