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A review by kalira
Always Haunted: Hallowe'en Poems by LindaAnn LoSchiavo
2.5
(Note: I received a free ARC ebook in exchange for an honest review.)
Generally, poetry is so very personal and reliant upon . . . well, vibes, that truly, reviewing it often speaks more to personal tastes, or feeling, than anything else. Mostly, I just didn't really vibe with this collection, on a number of levels.
I found the first poem uncomfortable to read stylistically (personal taste); the second one I simply didn't vibe with; the third I liked somewhat but the vibe still wasn't quite there for me; the fourth threw me for all new reasons.
Technically - many of the poems employ the style of breaking phrases midway across two lines, with (what feels like) no other nod to rhythm; others run into large paragraph block(s) with no linebreaks. Neither are a style I particularly enjoy, and especially the former often feels hiccupy to me while reading.
Tonally - in Halloween, horror, or generally for eerie stories and poems I happily enjoy both lighthearted (whether silly or serious) or seriously unsettling or creepy tones . . . but in general, especially for a small collection, it really needs to decide on one or the other. This one . . . didn't.
It was a surprise to hit the fourth poem (immediately after a somewhat lighthearted or silly one about Dracula preparing to host a Halloween soiree) about . . . a real world rape/assault committed in 2005; the poem casting a specific assault he committed with faint possible supernatural/science fiction notes as though he were controlled by an outside force?
It was not the only poem to reference real world occurrences or persons, indeed there were a number of them, but not only was it the first, none of the others felt quite so . . . tone deaf (or perhaps in poor taste) as that one with its particular angle.
The idea of a Gilded Age businesswoman (already having oft been called "the Witch of Wall Street", simply for being a female financier in a time when all her peers were male) being truly a witch, for example, was a bit of a sly, knowing nod in feeling. The perspective of a woman whose coffin was exhumed 7 years after her death by her husband, (justifiably) disbelieving and thrown, watching from beyond the grave as this was effected, was empathetic and offered the reader to share her offence. Even a pair of murdered lovers contemplating their afterlife together and their unsolved murder was a curious, distanced, almost wistful tone.
My particular favourite poem I think was Hallowe'en Window Painting (the twentieth, and near the end). Also quite fun on the lighthearted side (and the only one to have a poetic feel that really spoke to me, beats-wise) was Emily Post's "Etiquette Book for Ghosts" Some single lines I liked from others:
Generally, poetry is so very personal and reliant upon . . . well, vibes, that truly, reviewing it often speaks more to personal tastes, or feeling, than anything else. Mostly, I just didn't really vibe with this collection, on a number of levels.
I found the first poem uncomfortable to read stylistically (personal taste); the second one I simply didn't vibe with; the third I liked somewhat but the vibe still wasn't quite there for me; the fourth threw me for all new reasons.
Technically - many of the poems employ the style of breaking phrases midway across two lines, with (what feels like) no other nod to rhythm; others run into large paragraph block(s) with no linebreaks. Neither are a style I particularly enjoy, and especially the former often feels hiccupy to me while reading.
Tonally - in Halloween, horror, or generally for eerie stories and poems I happily enjoy both lighthearted (whether silly or serious) or seriously unsettling or creepy tones . . . but in general, especially for a small collection, it really needs to decide on one or the other. This one . . . didn't.
It was a surprise to hit the fourth poem (immediately after a somewhat lighthearted or silly one about Dracula preparing to host a Halloween soiree) about . . . a real world rape/assault committed in 2005; the poem casting a specific assault he committed with faint possible supernatural/science fiction notes as though he were controlled by an outside force?
It was not the only poem to reference real world occurrences or persons, indeed there were a number of them, but not only was it the first, none of the others felt quite so . . . tone deaf (or perhaps in poor taste) as that one with its particular angle.
The idea of a Gilded Age businesswoman (already having oft been called "the Witch of Wall Street", simply for being a female financier in a time when all her peers were male) being truly a witch, for example, was a bit of a sly, knowing nod in feeling. The perspective of a woman whose coffin was exhumed 7 years after her death by her husband, (justifiably) disbelieving and thrown, watching from beyond the grave as this was effected, was empathetic and offered the reader to share her offence. Even a pair of murdered lovers contemplating their afterlife together and their unsolved murder was a curious, distanced, almost wistful tone.
My particular favourite poem I think was Hallowe'en Window Painting (the twentieth, and near the end). Also quite fun on the lighthearted side (and the only one to have a poetic feel that really spoke to me, beats-wise) was Emily Post's "Etiquette Book for Ghosts" Some single lines I liked from others:
a tourniquet for his unquiet mind
(in a Dracula poem)
I learned to be immortal from blood’s kiss.
(from a poem also featuring Dracula, though it transitioned into something of a short story? a narrative poem perhaps, but with very little to divide it from prose. It also quoted poetry by Mihai Eminescu, who I had never heard of but have now looked up and read more from, and whose work I find I quite like)
Greed’s bad ghost karma can’t be rectified.
(from a poem about the first commercial haunted house, which venture . . . ended poorly >.>)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder
Moderate: Death and Sexual assault
Minor: Sexism and Toxic relationship