Review of Artwords

[Twylla]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Artwords" by Beatriz M. Robles.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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Artwords by Beatriz M. Robles is a unique book of poetry using calligrams, redactive poetry, and photograph poems. A calligram is a visual arrangement of words to form shapes or images. A calligram intensifies the message of the text by creating word pictures. Redactive poetry involves taking text that someone else has written and blacking out the words to leave some of the words to form a poem that changes the meaning of the original text. Photograph poems are words arranged on photographs of objects related to the text.

I have seen scriptures from the Bible in calligram format, but it was interesting to see it done with poetry. It makes an interesting combination of words and images. My favorite calligram was “Passed Over.” The poem is about bringing people together, and the words of the poem are printed on the page to form the image of a bridge.

The photograph poetry was also very interesting. My favorite photograph poem was “Pretty Tiring." One line of the text is “How many times a day does a girl have to comb her hair?” The text was printed on photographs of combs.

But I went crazy over redactive poetry. I tried to write a redactive poem, and I loved it! I have never been able to write poetry, but anyone can write a redactive poem. I can’t look at a page of text anymore without wondering what poems are hiding in that text.

To be perfectly honest, I didn’t care for any of the poems in this book. The subject matter of intimate couple sexuality was a little too risque for a Midwestern girl, and if I had known that was the subject of all of the poems, I would have passed over this book. But I am so glad I didn’t! I am now an aspiring redactive poet. It sparked a flame somewhere inside of me, and now I am obsessed with it.

This book is well-written and professionally edited. I didn’t find any errors. Even though I didn’t care for the subject matter of the poems, I am thrilled to have learned about these different types of poetry. I would recommend this book to mature adult lovers of poetry and wordplay who would like to expand their creative expression into other forms of poetry. I am giving this book a rating of 4 out of 4 stars because it is undeniably one of the most creative books I have ever read.

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Artwords
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