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Words with Voices
I was taught in middle school that poetry is meant to be read out loud. If you agree and if you believe words can be just as powerful as a picture, then this book is for you.
A debut collection of poetry told in three parts, "Words with Voices" serves as my love letter to writing, a six-year healing journey, and a reckoning with my muse. My favorite kind of quote or poem is one that shouts at you or cries out or whimpers.
I like words with voices, so I hope you will too.
A debut collection of poetry told in three parts, "Words with Voices" serves as my love letter to writing, a six-year healing journey, and a reckoning with my muse. My favorite kind of quote or poem is one that shouts at you or cries out or whimpers.
I like words with voices, so I hope you will too.
121 pages, Paperback
Published March 18, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 29, 2023
Poetry is something I’ve never understood very well, but it has always intrigued me. I believe poems hold a certain amount of vulnerability and for someone to publish an entire book of them is the bravest kind of brave.
I was thrilled to find that an author that I’ve been following on IG (virginialee_writes) published poetry of her own! This collection of poems is a pure work of art & paired with the amazing illustrations are simply brilliant.
This is a book you definitely want to add to your collection!
I was thrilled to find that an author that I’ve been following on IG (virginialee_writes) published poetry of her own! This collection of poems is a pure work of art & paired with the amazing illustrations are simply brilliant.
This is a book you definitely want to add to your collection!
October 16, 2023
Book Review
Words With Voices by Virginia Lee Bernal
⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5 Stars)
This last week, I finally picked up a poetry collection that’s been on my TBR for a long time: Words With Voices by Virginia Lee Bernal. This collection is divided into three sections: Prompted, 2016, and The Muse. Each section had its strengths and its weaknesses, but I would happily go back and reread The Muse time and time again and take something new from it each time.
Prompted
There are some poems I really enjoyed in this section, but because the poems are based on prompts and lack a through line, it is kind of hard to stay engaged for the first bit of the collection. Even so, I appreciate how Bernal can write about something so mundane as a hotel lobby and turn it into an emotional scene. “Muse be nice to be fought over even when you’re broken” was the first of many lines I tagged in this book.
2016
There certainly is a through line in the second section of the collection, though I won’t say it’s any easier to read because of its subject matter. But the poems are beautiful and brave, and I felt lucky to get to read them. “Dollhouse” was one of my favorite poems in the collection, in equal parts vulnerable and heartbreaking, but ending on a glimmer of hope.
The Muse
This third section primarily centers around love and heartbreak, and I related to so many of its poems. Though the poems are personal to Bernal and detail her experiences, they still manage to feel personal to me as a reader. I felt the whole spectrum of emotions in this section (and am not ashamed to say that I cried more than once reading it), which is why I loved it.
I will say that my favorite works tended to be the prose poems that didn’t rhyme, but that’s just my personal preference for poems with a bit less structure! I still loved Words With Voices, even if reading this just a month after a breakup was really just self inflicted torture 😂
Words With Voices by Virginia Lee Bernal
⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5 Stars)
This last week, I finally picked up a poetry collection that’s been on my TBR for a long time: Words With Voices by Virginia Lee Bernal. This collection is divided into three sections: Prompted, 2016, and The Muse. Each section had its strengths and its weaknesses, but I would happily go back and reread The Muse time and time again and take something new from it each time.
Prompted
There are some poems I really enjoyed in this section, but because the poems are based on prompts and lack a through line, it is kind of hard to stay engaged for the first bit of the collection. Even so, I appreciate how Bernal can write about something so mundane as a hotel lobby and turn it into an emotional scene. “Muse be nice to be fought over even when you’re broken” was the first of many lines I tagged in this book.
2016
There certainly is a through line in the second section of the collection, though I won’t say it’s any easier to read because of its subject matter. But the poems are beautiful and brave, and I felt lucky to get to read them. “Dollhouse” was one of my favorite poems in the collection, in equal parts vulnerable and heartbreaking, but ending on a glimmer of hope.
The Muse
This third section primarily centers around love and heartbreak, and I related to so many of its poems. Though the poems are personal to Bernal and detail her experiences, they still manage to feel personal to me as a reader. I felt the whole spectrum of emotions in this section (and am not ashamed to say that I cried more than once reading it), which is why I loved it.
I will say that my favorite works tended to be the prose poems that didn’t rhyme, but that’s just my personal preference for poems with a bit less structure! I still loved Words With Voices, even if reading this just a month after a breakup was really just self inflicted torture 😂
June 1, 2023
Beautifully written, heart-wrenching, and relatable collection of poems. It’s amazing how pieces like “First Aid” and “Hot Asphalt” can describe the experience of things like trauma and toxic relationships perfectly in such few words. Highly recommend.
October 7, 2023
Real emotions
Beautiful read of some of the real and raw emotions we go through in life. The heartbreaks, the love and the self-awareness, and getting the emotions out on paper.
Beautiful read of some of the real and raw emotions we go through in life. The heartbreaks, the love and the self-awareness, and getting the emotions out on paper.
Read
August 19, 2024Beautiful writing and equally beautiful art!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews