Official Review: Judah's Chronicles: Poetry From the Heart

[Chigozie Anuli Mbadugha]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Judah's Chronicles: Poetry From the Heart" by Em'Aysha.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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Judah’s Chronicles is a collection of twelve inspirational poems written by Em’Aysha. It is written from a Christian perspective, and the poems explore several themes that are important in life such as anger, purity of heart, envy, lust, fear, bitterness, grudges, and love. The poems are mainly free verse with no rhyme, rhythm, or meter. She illustrated the book with nice line sketches which pictorially show what she had in mind when writing the poems. The illustrations are simple but appealing. The author used personification in the poems. In the poem, ‘Lust’ Em’Aysha encourages people to oppose lust when it ‘calls their name’ as though lust is human and has a voice.

I enjoyed reading these poems very much because they dealt with topics which I feel are important and relevant to society. The issues discussed in the poems are common-place, and many people can relate to them. The absence of rhyme, rhythm and meter in most of the poems did not detract from my enjoyment of them. I liked the author’s use of active words that evoke imagery. In the poem ‘Anger,’ the author uses words such as ‘bubbles up, spews, drips and trickles’ to describe anger. These words evoked imagery for me, and I was able to appreciate the poem even more.

My favorite poems were Lust, Travail, and My Thoughts Towards You. I liked the poem 'Lust' because after discussing lust and the dangers associated with it, the author proffered solutions to dealing with lustful feelings. Travail captured the labor pangs women go through succinctly, and I think the process of ‘giving birth’ to a dream or project can also apply to this poem.

There were a few grammatical and punctuation errors, but they were not distracting. I would have liked more consistency in the punctuation. Some words had apostrophes in them while others did not. I think the book would have benefited from one more round of professional editing. I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars because of the errors I noted. I would have loved to give it a 4-star rating because of the topical nature of the themes it explores and its relevance to modern-day issues.

I think most of the author’s opinions in the poems, though derived from a Christian purview, can be shared with other religions. It will make a good conversation starter for parents, youth coaches, and Bible school teachers. I recommend it as a useful addition to church and family libraries.

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Judah's Chronicles: Poetry From the Heart
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[kandscreeley]

I like that this book of poetry has line drawings as well. That's an added bonus for me as I'm not particularly fond of poetry. Still, the themes that the author talks about are important, and I'd love to see what she does with them. Thanks.

[Chigozie Anuli Mbadugha]

I like that this book of poetry has line drawings as well. That's an added bonus for me as I'm not particularly fond of poetry. Still, the themes that the author talks about are important, and I'd love to see what she does with them. Thanks.

Thanks for reading and commenting. The drawings were definitely a plus for me. Cheers!