Garden-of-Stars

“Bonsai Love” has a lot of things going on. Despite being described as a collection that addresses the delicacies of love, the poems go much more beyond that, some initially even straying from the theme of the collection a little. These weren’t as quick or as easy to get into as I assumed they would be – many had lovely images that drew the attention to them instantly, but there was a lack of unity and power in several of the poems. But my two favourites in this collection, ‘The Balcony’ and ‘The Balcony II’, not only went hand-in hand beautifully together. They also managed to nicely capture the fascination with the celestial world and relate it back to the complex nature of love, to the same fascination one feels when looking at a lover. They were true standouts in the collection. The rest were enjoyable, but many were that way on the surface, their deeper emotional reservoir being barred to me. I hope that with some time and more experience – as well as possibly different conditions under which I read these again – I will find the collection more to my liking, for it truly has several strong points.