This is the last day of my two kindle artist &poetry chapbooks that are on sale-reduced to just 99 cents!!
Tomorrow the sale will end. The books are: “Don’t cry me a river of crocodile tears.” (2013) by Emily Sturgill and
” Lavender Surprise.”(2013) by Emily Sturgill. To download Lavender Surprise follow this link HERE:
You can read more about the book on Good Reads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21481916-lavender-surprise
Two people left reviews on Good Reads when they won a paperback version of this book.
This book caught my eye while browsing the giveaway section for two reasons: first, I love the color purple (especially lavender); and two, I enjoy poetry and expressive art.
Emily Sturgill delivers well on both points! (Of course, the purple cover was the easiest of the two. 🙂 I enjoyed her approach to some of her poems by stringing random words together into a coherent piece. I also appreciate how the author writes what she knows – bringing influences from her life and surroundings – and fills it with unhesitating emotion and honesty. My favorite poem is “Artist Cemetery”. It rings too true for my life.
I enjoyed the style of the table of contents, too – so many TOC’s are straight-forward lines down the page, easy to get lost in or skip over, but Mrs. Sturgill even turns that into art, with alignments and indents that remind me of a gentle, meandering walk through the trees. However, the lack of page numbers throughout the book made it difficult to pinpoint a particular poem or piece of art without counting individual pages.
Mrs. Sturgill explores many mediums in her art, and I especially enjoy the watercolors (“Watercolor Roses” and “Branching Out” being my favorites). A few of her emotive art pieces came out blurry, suggesting they may have been resized to fit the page and lost some of the detail and sharpness. A few poems also had punctuation I wasn’t sure how to read – I feel they contributed to furthering the artistic nature of the author’s work, but some extra slashes and commas made it a little harder for me to stay in the poem.
Customer Reviews
The recent economic collapse of Detroit, MI. had been widely covered in the media. The Motor City/Detroit filed for bankruptcy on July 13, 2013. In the poem “Artistically Inclined” Sturgill describes her experience of living in the impoverished area, trying to make a living on the Detroit 8 Mile, selling creativity Sturgill declares is worse then the (nostalgic) vacuum cleaner salesman. “Artist’s Cemetery” my favorite poem: it seems, could be much darker then it actually is. The artist’s depression seems mostly a frustration of being unable to change or improve situations with big government, drug companies, (available by expensive prescription only), and excessive (predatory) profits. The hopelessness of poverty and being unable to rise above it. The very short: “Lovesong” is a more upbeat expression of Detroit city life, and “Monster Lyrics” the joyful leaping of music sound. Sturgill often writes in a confessional style, many of the poems are light, short, surreal, yet upbeat.
The poem “Babble” describes the abstraction of free thought, absentmindedness, which becomes Sturgill’s origional art form known as “Zentangle”. Three art pieces of “Zentangle” are featured in this chapbook, the pen/ink drawings and designs are of swirls and flourishes, which have a calmer softer effect. Previous volumes have featured the zigzag “Zentangle”, illistrating a more bold dramatic design and effect.
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The overall layout and design of the book is good. The poetry is heartfelt and the illustrations are interesting. However, the book could really benefit from the attentions of a proofreader or editor, as there are some typos and grammatical errors (including several in the author’s back cover bio).
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