OnlineBookClub.org

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "03 - Poetry (3 of 5)" by Dakota-Luise Wolf.]

Poetry Volumes 3 - 5
Dakota- Louise Wolf

Dakota Louise Wolf has been writing since the age of 7. In her About the Author section, she stated that writing for her was a way of escape as well as a way to deal with her life. This developed into a lifelong passion for putting her thoughts, feelings, and ideas in writing. She uses her poetry to express love for her family and friends, memories of her life, feelings of sadness and betrayal as well as feelings and advice about life in general. Most of the poems have a positive tone, especially the ones involving her husband and children. She marvels at her good fortune in finding the love of her life and writes numerous poems about her love for her children.

Volume three contains poems whose titles begin with the letters K – O, Volume 4 the letters P – T and Volume 5 the letters U – Z. These poems are written in free verse style. Many of her poems are straightforward with clear meaning. Some, as in “Life’s a Prison” leave you with questions.

Her poems vary in length; my favorite ones are a couple of the shorter poems where she captures one thought or image. One example is the following poem:

Misunderstanding
Why do you
Pretend like
I don’t matter to you
When you’re
All that
Matters to me?

She is unafraid to write with pure emotion. Dakota Louise Wolf writes of happiness, joy, and sorrow with equal passion. While reading the majority of her poems, I knew exactly how she was feeling. She repeats the theme of love as protection often, especially in the poems about her husband. Other themes are always being there for her husband and children, missing and longing for family that has passed on, and feeling unloved and abandoned by those who have hurt her. I found many of her poems to be repetitious in nature and subject and many of them contained the same common phrases (“I made my promise to you”, “I promise to love you forever and always”, “People make this promise for all eternity”)

If expressing raw and sincere emotion were the only criteria for evaluating these poems I would give her a 4. She possesses a fearless and keen ability to portray her feelings in writing and it is easy to understand her appeal to those who have gone through some of the same experiences. My evaluation for this collection is 2 out of 4 stars for the following reasons.
1. Poor editing and mistakes in correct word usage and grammar ( your for you’re, weather for whether, etc.)
2. Limited use of poetic imagery. One example where she does use imagery is in the title of her poem “Life’s a Prison”
3. Many poems, although written in free verse structure, seem to simply be paragraphs as though she were writing entries in a diary or writing a letter.

My suggestions: Continue writing. It is no small thing to be able to write what your heart is feeling. Keep reading the poetry of others and familiarize yourself with a variety of poetic devices.

Holly Courtney

******
03 - Poetry (3 of 5)
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon

Like nitebyrd44's review? Post a comment saying so!

Thanks for the great review! The last book I read sounds very similar to this one. It's almost like you have to read it in chunks. It's hard to read an entire poetry book at once when t doesn't tell a story. However, the poetry in this sounds really good. I've gotten back into poetry recently, and I'll have to check this out.