Muse

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Muse

Category:	Poetry
Author:	Julian Ball
Publisher:	AuthorHouse
Price:	£10.99
ISBN:	9781434354488
Pages:	200
Reviewed in issue:	9

This book contains quite deep poetry. Quite a sturdy book, bound properly and very well presented. Quite a long book containing 200 or so pages. Some of the poems are of extreme length. Some with multiple pages and some with just a few lines.

I liked ‘If we could’ (p. 75). This poem to me is about who are leaders and why we follow them into the new eras. Change is something as humans we don't like doing. It is hinted that the leader in this poem is a women who teases us into following her.

Some of the poems I feel are about heroes or icons of the writer. A kind of a dedication to someone, be it a Greek God or a sister. ‘Inkling’, a poem that hints about an after-life or even multiple personalities perhaps. ‘Long ago’ (p. 106) breaks from Julian’s style at the beginning of the anthology. This poem uses rhyme and structure whereas before it was random and a free movement of sentences. I love this poem as we have all experienced the moment captured in this piece. It’s sad but very true to life. If Clintons Cards were to make a card for Valentine’s Day for couples who truly did remain friends after their split, then Julian’s poem would be very much at home within the card. It’s a touching account of when people grow apart from loved ones.

I fear that some of the longer, more broken poems would bewilder the general reader. However, this book is most suited to die-hard poetry fans. It’s an intense read from someone who has a typical poet’s view on life. Melancholic and depressive as well as wondrous and amazing. This is not a bad show for Julian’s first outing.

Julian is also an artist and has created the front cover, so the book is all his own work. The cover itself is an abstract picture of a woman, appropriate as women always seem to feature in the poems. I am assuming this is his muse. I really did enjoy this book.

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