Official Review: Listening I Hear Your Voices

[Azeline Arcenal]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Listening I Hear Your Voices" by Stephanie A. Hunter R.N.,MSW.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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Listening, I Hear Your Voices by Stephanie A. Hunter R.N., MSW is a collection of poems about veterans and their struggles of dealing with PTSD. The author is a nurse and a social worker who spent her time talking to veterans dealing with PTSD. She then wrote a book of poems about their feelings and experiences.

At the beginning of the book, the author has an introduction that thanks each of the veterans that she has communicated with. Consisting of about forty-five poems, most of the poems depict the struggles veterans face every day as they try to live among their memories of war. There are also poems that are written from the author’s point of view as she gets to know the lives of these veterans. At the end of the book is an introduction of the author that tells of the growth the author has experienced during her life as a nurse and then as a social worker.

Many of the poems are filled with dark imagery, referencing longing, pain, loss, and sadness. However, there are also poems that are filled with care and love. The collection includes poems with varying length that range from a few verses to a little more than one page. Moreover, the poems in this collection varied in style. Some poems had different rhyming patterns while other poems were written in free verse. Each poem can stand alone, but together each poem complements one another. However, there is a section in the book that says it isn’t a poem which I thought was a bit out of place, but I think it still fits into the theme of what the author is trying to portray.

Although I have little experiences with veterans dealing with PTSD, I found this book of poems to be very moving. I could sense the emotion and passion written in every poem. I have not gone through what they have experienced, but it was touching to read about some of what goes on inside their minds. What I liked most about reading this book is that when reading the poems, I was able to get a sense of the feelings that each poem brings.

Overall, I rate this book a 4 out of 4 stars. I found the poems to be very moving and I enjoyed reading every single one of them. I would recommend this book to those who enjoy poetry as well as those who struggle with or want to understand PTSD.

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Listening I Hear Your Voices
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[Amanda_puerto]

Writing about this is very risky but you seem very professional about it and it is very interesting to read the poems and it's also very interesting to see what people have gone through

[Azeline Arcenal]

Writing about this is very risky but you seem very professional about it and it is very interesting to read the poems and it's also very interesting to see what people have gone through

Thanks for commenting!

[Yaone]

Sounds interesting, I might read it. Thanks for the review

[Azeline Arcenal]

Sounds interesting, I might read it. Thanks for the review

Thanks for commenting!

[Manang Muyang]

War is really useless. Many lives are sacrificed, soldier and civilian alike. Even those who survive live in misery, hounded by PTSD. Let's all pray, "No more wars!"

Thanks for your moving piece, Zenalei7!

[sherif olabode]

A pair of alienated, hypersensitive South Korean boys seek solace, first from each other and then from the volatile subculture of their homeless, aimless peers.
Kim (I Have the Right to Destroy Myself, 2010, etc.), a prolific and eclectic Korean novelist, has found artistically fertile ground in the broken lives of his country’s misfits. And it would be difficult to imagine two more marginalized protagonists than Jae and Donggyu. Jae, born in Seoul's Express Bus Terminal to a homeless teenager, is destined from the start to repeat his mother's fate. A few years later, Jae, who's been adopted by a “hostess club” kitchen employee, meets Donggyu, the son of a police detective, and they forge a lifelong bond. Jae is the only person who can communicate with Donggyu, who for years will not say a word to anyone. Jae’s ability to be “the interpreter" of Donggyu's desires foretells psychic gifts that help him not only survive, but prevail when he’s compelled to forage through the city’s meaner streets of criminals, prostitutes, and teen runaways. Though Donggyu eventually shows his ability to speak, he remains more a watchful listener as he witnesses Jae’s transition from grubby, emaciated street rat to charismatic leader of one of the many motorcycle gangs racing and roaring with aimless swagger through the city’s streets. The source of Jae’s power seems to be his omnidirectional empathy not merely with people, but with animals, plants, and even inanimate objects. (“If a being experiences extreme suffering, I feel it, too," he says.) Donggyu, being the first to recognize Jae’s gifts, eventually becomes a motorcyclist himself, investing his less messianic but just as intense degree of empathy into the other wayward youths drawn into Jae’s circle. Like the shifting gears of an engine, Kim’s narrative changes perspectives from Donggyu’s first-person recollections to wide-screen omniscience to the point of view of an enigmatic police officer and even to that of the author himself, following a climactic motorcycle rally whose stunning denouement leaves behind many more questions than answers.
The story’s transitions aren’t always navigated as deftly as Kim intends. But his own empathetic gifts applied toward even the quirkiest and seediest of his characters evoke a vivid panorama of what life along the edges is like in Seoul.

[bookowlie]

I enjoyed your well-written, thorough review. The poems sound interesting as they bring out the emotion and give readers a sense of what someone goes through when they have PTSD. I am going to take a look at the sample.

[Kat Berg]

I often wonder how I would go about writing a Review on a book of poems. You have done it well. I imagine that some of the poems were more than a little difficult to read, given the subject matter, but I am glad it wasn't all dark!

[Mercelle]

This sounds like an interesting book. I like that each poem can be read as a stand alone. The darkness in the poems might be a little spooky though.

[Bankscarta]

Very interesting topic the writer catches the audience very intriguing to be read I Hear Your Voices

[inaramid]

I was wondering why the author needed to include the RN and MSW in her name, but I understood straight away after the first paragraph of your review. Those in the helping profession often have to witness the worst damage that the world can do to people. I'm glad that Ms. Hunter found a creative outlet, and that, according to this review, it has successfully touched other people as well.

[mtoseef74]

The is indeed a good book to read. So read this book

[222077]

This is a great book for people who love history and it also the dark imaginary part of it, makes it seem kind of spooky.

[tonysgirl0805]

I am not one for reading a book of poems but I would give this a try because veterans are really important to me and have a huge impact in my life.