OnlineBookClub.org

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Flecks of Red" by Melyssa A Harmon.]

Flecks of Red is a poetry anthology on mental illness. It is a brainchild of former music journalist Melyssa A. Harmon. It comprises a unique collection of poetry that addresses the story and stigma of mental illness. The poems address a wide range of mental disorder which includes anxiety, depression, seasonal effective disorders, bipolar, schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorders. This is a drama and poetry book published in 2018.

Eden Kuaea wrote one poem. Doctors diagnosed her with a bipolar mood disorder and acute anxiety disorders in her early twenties. She has stated that she struggled with issues of addiction. These experiences prompted her to write a poem with the title ‘The Better Half.’ She wrote, ‘I’m worthless but you give me purpose. You help me live when I don’t know how to breathe. You make me nervous and make me think. You’re the best part of my anxiety.’

This is one of the finest poetry books I have read. The poets have given a brief autobiography of themselves and the incidence that led them to write the poems. Each poet has his own style of writing. While some are slanted, others have been written vertically. This adds variety to the book. The author has highlighted the title of the poems in black to make them visible for readers. There is an excellent use of the literal devices with personification mostly used. The expressions used are within the comprehension of an average reader. The author has used a table of contents to guide readers. Few vocabularies will need the dictionary. Readers will read with confidence as there are no spelling or grammatical errors. I recommend this book to literature students and individuals who have experienced any form of mental disorder. Individuals who have not experienced mental disorders may not read this book as the poems may sound meaningless to them.

However, I realized that the poems had no defined spacing. Some poems are too close, others are far apart. I recommend the author uses defined spacing so her book will look professional.

This compilation by Melyssa A. Harmon is excellent. The limitation above is minor. I hope she will fix this when writing the next edition of this book. I hope she will produce more compilation on other subject areas. I, therefore, rate Flecks of Red by Melyssa A. Harmon 4 out of 4 stars.

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Flecks of Red
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Like kwame1977's review? Post a comment saying so!

Thank you for your review! The poems in this book will be interesting to read since all of the poets have one thing in common-mental illness. I'm sure writing poems can be a good outlet for expressing complicated feelings.

The book seems to have a clear theme even if the spacing is not so clear. The topic is very relevant in today's society so I would be most interested in reading this book in the future.

I liked that you have used an extract from a poem in your example as it helps me gauge the type of language to expect.

I've never read poetry that was written by a person while they were suffering from a mental illness (at least not that I'm aware of). I would be curious to read this just to see if I can even understand anything they were saying when they wrote these poems. I would also be curious to read this to see if the poems look any different from other poems I've read from people who were not suffering from any mental illness.

I have been waiting to read something like this. Thank you for this beautiful review!