Spleen

by Mabi David

Genres: Poetry

34 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Aloysiusi Lionel · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the beginning, there was the word. It sits quietly, as if the act has the alternative capacity of speaking and screaming. And it breaks into utterances and punctuations because it can no longer hold itself. The soul finds delight in bursting forth. How does the event of bursting sound within a ventricle of ultimately quiet passion? The word breaks away. It has a mouth eternally zipped, and a crevice is finally seen, this must be hope and courage. The canvas, the bowl, the table, the wind vane, the postscript, the provisions, the construction site, all these are fragments of a soulful word. When everything looks all right, the word creeps through the chip, the hole, the curtain slightly drawn to show the newness of mornings, the lips always ready to devour after the desire. And there is that untimely silence, when the reader expects a certain kind of ecstasy from the cacophony of letters and the predictability of enjambments. But the invisible soul decides it that way. And it is more deafening. The irony of covering the ears while waiting for occasional bursting. One hopes it will not reduce into the origin, into its ancestry, may it resound in the periphery. Simple and simple, but stupendous and real.

[Zymon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second time reading this marvel of a book. Beneath the poems that make up this calm, breathtaking collection is seething boredom and frustration. The persona here sits, ruminates; this image forms an entire still life that we can peer into as it gets juxtaposed with images and personified elements of nature. As Mabi David writes in her most popular poem to date: “Nothing is happening.” The persona is catastrophically stuck, so as to pass time she drops these revelations that are so searing they leave a hot mark. Here enters the collection’s title. How else can we describe the persona if not with a one-syllable six-letter word that’s synonymous to bad mood?

[Meeko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mabi David’s Spleen is a collection of heartfelt, honest, straightforward poems which takes you in a solitary nostalgia, of being alone but somehow being okay with it. There’s a place of hope in her words; full of metaphors may it be a bowl, a wind vane, paintings. She illustrated a mundane life, almost falling into a limbo, and find art in it and comfort.

I love this one so much and it exceeded my expectations. This is a book I’ll probably go back to every once in a while.

[justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

exquisite exquisite exquisite exquisite

[francis · Rating 5 out of 5]

silence is a friend