Official Review: High On Life by Thaddeus Simpson
Posted: 09 Aug 2014, 19:53
[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "High On Life" by Thaddeus Simpson.]
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High on Life is a collection of poetry by Thaddeus Simpson. The poems are free verse, though several contain rhymes and are set up in a quatrain structure. There is a touch of lightness to them that at times brought a smile to my face, but I didn’t find quite enough meaning in the poems for me to properly enjoy them. While there were some poems that I thought were nearly good, they didn’t go quite far enough for me to give the collection more than 2 out of 4 stars.
Simpson writes his poetry with a light touch, one that often doesn’t fit with the aesthetic people who have been versed in poetry have come to expect and enjoy. While there were some moments that I enjoyed and thought could have been excellent (“Private Gallery”, for instance, and “Questions of a Dream”), there were moments in all the poems that made me feel they were too simplistic for me to find anything but the most obvious of messages. I frequently wished for something a little more complex than what I was given.
The sort of complexity I like in poems lies in having to look for something, in having meaning that lies just beyond what I can make out on a first reading. “Private Gallery” had that in the first few stanzas, which depicted a set of drawings made on the wall of a bathroom stall, which are strange yet beautiful. However, the last line takes what could have been something ephemeral and adds a note of sarcasm that doesn’t entirely fit with the tone at first. “Questions of a Dream” creates a beautiful image, but there are moments when it feels too mundane and specific to the people in the poem (Eric and Linda).
There are a few love poems within the collection, most of which are based on the speaker of the poem meeting a woman briefly and being attracted to her at first sight. There is little variation in this – in fact, despite the different rhymes and sets of stanzas, there feels like there is very little variation in the poems. As I have said before, they all have a light touch to them, but the majority also have a hint of sarcasm as well, which often becomes more than just a hint. In some places, such as “Little Big Things”, the sarcasm feels fitting, but in poems that have more beauty to them, the sarcasm feels out of place.
Part of my rating may well be a matter of taste, and a good many of the poems will almost certainly make people smile, but they didn’t have the levels of complexity and different layers of meaning that I look for in poetry. I would have liked to see some of the ideas within the poems pushed further, along with having some where the touches of humor and sarcasm were laid on with a lighter hand.
***
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Share This Review
Simpson writes his poetry with a light touch, one that often doesn’t fit with the aesthetic people who have been versed in poetry have come to expect and enjoy. While there were some moments that I enjoyed and thought could have been excellent (“Private Gallery”, for instance, and “Questions of a Dream”), there were moments in all the poems that made me feel they were too simplistic for me to find anything but the most obvious of messages. I frequently wished for something a little more complex than what I was given.
The sort of complexity I like in poems lies in having to look for something, in having meaning that lies just beyond what I can make out on a first reading. “Private Gallery” had that in the first few stanzas, which depicted a set of drawings made on the wall of a bathroom stall, which are strange yet beautiful. However, the last line takes what could have been something ephemeral and adds a note of sarcasm that doesn’t entirely fit with the tone at first. “Questions of a Dream” creates a beautiful image, but there are moments when it feels too mundane and specific to the people in the poem (Eric and Linda).
There are a few love poems within the collection, most of which are based on the speaker of the poem meeting a woman briefly and being attracted to her at first sight. There is little variation in this – in fact, despite the different rhymes and sets of stanzas, there feels like there is very little variation in the poems. As I have said before, they all have a light touch to them, but the majority also have a hint of sarcasm as well, which often becomes more than just a hint. In some places, such as “Little Big Things”, the sarcasm feels fitting, but in poems that have more beauty to them, the sarcasm feels out of place.
Part of my rating may well be a matter of taste, and a good many of the poems will almost certainly make people smile, but they didn’t have the levels of complexity and different layers of meaning that I look for in poetry. I would have liked to see some of the ideas within the poems pushed further, along with having some where the touches of humor and sarcasm were laid on with a lighter hand.
***
Buy "High On Life" on Barnes and Noble