Review by Kisstopher Musick
Dope Fiend, Pissed and October Maple can be found at Poems That Suck https://poemsthatsuck.com/.
Poetry appeared in the January addition of Anti-Heroin Chic and can be found at http://heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-by-leia-john.
Beloved: A Poem for Palestine won first prize in the 2020 Anita McAndrew Award and can be found on the Poets Without Boarders website.
Dope Fiend is a hard-hitting piece about love and loss and the after math. It grabs you from the title and doesn’t let go until long after you’ve read the piece. It is the type of work that calls you to revisit it and go on that roller coaster ride one more time. The piece unironically gets under your skin in very much they way the speaker describes the lover of old.
Pissed is a whimsical take on love gone cold. If perfectly captures that moment when you know you are no longer in love but are still with the person even in that loveless state. It transported me to so many moments in relationship gone by when I knew it was over, but mu lover did not. I enjoyed the sardonic humor as it perfectly captures the moment.
October Maple reminds of moments when I am connected to my body and feeling connected to the earth. Of how far too often I forget to look up around me and soak in the beauty that nature has to offer. How casually I can forget how marvelous my body is in the natural world. There is also this delightful sensory exploration and reflection that left me with a deeper connection to my physical self.
Poetry The frenetic energy of the piece took me on a face passed ride of desperation, shame, and the desire to escape what the writer had become. I found myself at the end of the piece filled with empathy and understanding of a person I may have been in a past incarnation of myself that I have happily left behind. At the end of the piece, I felt self-satisfied in my own growth and hoped that the speaker would live long enough to come to a place of self-confidence and acceptance.
BELOVED: A POEM FOR PALESTINE Captures the beauty of Palestine and allows us to enjoy and soak it up without all of the heavy politics that depersonalize and robs the region of recognition of its natural beauty. It personalizes and humanizes the pain of the region is poetic beauty. The loss of its beauty becomes personal as a lover crying for the loss of their lover as they are twisted into something that no longer resembles who they love. Just as Palestine has been twisted, bruised, and ravaged by the world. It is not a political piece, but it brings home the human suffering that was once joy. The piece ends a note of hope as we all hope for peace and the ability to once again hold our lovers’ hands as we soak up the natural beauty that is Palestine.