Official Review: Within the Mind of a Butterfly

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Christina O Phillips
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Official Review: Within the Mind of a Butterfly

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[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Within the Mind of a Butterfly" by Toinette Ishee.]
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3 out of 4 stars
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I read somewhere once that writing is easy; you just sit at a typewriter and bleed. While this quote has been attributed to Hemingway, there are also arguments that he did not say this. Either way, it is fitting when it comes to poetry, especially with the collection by Toinette Ishee.

Within the Mind of a Butterfly, written by Toinette Ishee, is a small collection of poetry (just under forty pages) that focuses on mental health. This is also a bilingual read; following each English version of the poem is the Spanish translation. Reading the Spanish helped to give me a different emotional connection to the poetry than the English version. However, if you are not bilingual, you can still enjoy the poetry in just one language rather than both.

Besides the emotion that reading the poetry brings forth, it is thought-provoking. I took my time reading each one, reflecting on how I could relate to it, how it made me feel, what it made me learn about mental health. I know that in poetry the reader should not always attribute the message of the poem as being the personal feelings or thoughts of the writer, but these poems feel so in touch with the aspects of mental health that they do feel personal. Ishee has found a way using free verse poetry with some rhyming to make readers understand what it is to be depressed or suffer from anxiety or panic attacks.

Poetry is very subjective so it is hard to list dislikes about a collection of poems. Don’t get me wrong, I have read bad poetry. To me bad poetry is when the writer does not say anything new about a topic or just states things as they are with no poetic tools. This is not the case with Ishee’s collection. Her poems are open and honest and, if you have mental health issues, relatable. While her poems are written in free verse, she uses enjambment, plays with her line breaks, and uses rhymes sometimes to help make the prose have a more poetic feel.

I rate this book a 3 out of 4 stars. If you like poetry and either suffer from anxiety, depression or panic attacks yourself or just want to learn more about these mental health conditions, you should pick this collection up. This collection would also be a good way to introduce someone to poetry as it is not difficult to understand. I myself am going to find more of her works.

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Within the Mind of a Butterfly
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