Quiet Sheba

by Elizabeth Clayton

When a fire burns into its ashes, only the fragrance of it is still left, together with the images of its passion, biding in smoke, billowing up, and into the away. Events do occur in our physical and emotional worlds, and these are, oftentimes, worthy of memories of them. In the years between spring of 1993 and the closing of 1999, a significant portion of my life burned away within the face of its circumstances-ashes left of physical and emotional properties-so that recording through hundreds of verses and colorful artistic expression were/are here the ashes with bittersweet, still-fragrant smoke lifting away of left passion. We cannot comfortably live in the past or the future but in the moment itself, composed of the ashes and continuing passion alongside the dreams and visions of tomorrow's largess. We remember and we press forward as we, with gratitude, come to table of the feast of life through moments, often and long.

218 pages, Paperback

First published September 23, 2014

Reviews

[Lyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book of poems - what made it stand out to me was the short reflection / comment that the author included after most of the poems. I liked getting her thoughts on some of the poems, because poetry is so open to interpretation. This reflection text was normally separated from the text of the poems by a space, and a different color. However, there were a few times when it was not done this way, so that made reading those ones kind of confusing. Also, there were some reflections in what seemed to be the middle of some of the poems - I'm still not sure if this was actually the middle of these poems, or if the sections following these "interrupting reflections" were actually meant to be separate, untitled poems. So I didn't like the reflections in those cases.
Another thing that I wasn't a fan of was the liberal use of commas at times, but I can forgive this because it's possible the author wanted them to be read a certain way, and was using the commas to convey that better.
My favorite part of this book was the background stuff. Something about the tannish color of the pages / the darker spots on them made reading this really easy and relaxing to read. The pictures did this, too. Those are slightly blurry, and were never obviously related to the poems they were next to, but I felt like they were an essential part of the book all the same.
Note: I received this book for free through Goodreads Giveaways.

[Kathy Duffy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an amazing book of poetry by a woman who used the crafting of poetry to get her through some hard times that would emotionally cripple many a person. The poetical images, especially her nature imagery is just beautiful below each poems is a sentence describing what prompted that particular poem.

I think this would be a book to lift up someone going through a hard emotional and/or physical difficulty but the poetry can be appreciated by all because who among us have not gone through something that ravaged us emotionally if not physically.

I hope these poems reach a wide audience.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading the book and the layout is so beautiful.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of poetry is magical! I was lucky enough to win it through a Goodreads Giveaway, Thank YOU soo much!! My two loves are literature and psychology and the author has weaved the two through her life and through her words. I cannot recommend this collection enough!! I cannot wait to get my hands on the other volumes!!! Our life tends to give us our best work as poets and that's just what this amazing lady as done. Thank you for sharing your work with us!

[Beverly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just received this book after I won it in the Giveaway. It is so beautiful, the cover and the pages the well crafted words are on. I look forward to diving into it some more. Thank you

[Michelle]

Art and words across over 200 pages of not-exactly a memoir.

[Denise]

Poetry with beautiful illustrations.