Poetry is a window into the soul of the one that writes it. Sometimes you find a mirror of some emotion, some event, some moment that happened in your own life. That mirror can show you many things. Sometimes you fin a glimpse of a Heaven you once knew. At other times it can conjure a glimpse into a Hell that you long to forget. This book of poems will give you insight into Shay Leigh's unforgotten moments of Hell. The things that broke her, the loves that left her, the tears she hid, the pain she had to endure in order to survive. In this book of dark, bleak and pain filled poetry, some of her scars are brought to light.
Shay Leigh currently lives in Southern New Mexico with her three sons. She started writing poetry and fan fiction as a child. She still writes poetry, as well as children's stories, YA novels, adult Fantasy novels, and anything else that comes to her.
I've never been a huge poetry fan unless the poems were funny or meant something. Typically I read poems as a bunch of rhyming words with little thought or emotion tied into them. Lately, however, I have read some work by two friends of mine that have really moved me and showed me that not all poetry is dead and gone and that something worth reading is still out there.
Shay Leigh is one of them with her book Sins Within. From beginning to end I was hooked, and I read it quite fast. At only 33 pages long, it's not a hard read or even a long read, yet at the end I was drained and had to take a short nap! Her poems grabbed me and wouldn't let go. Her energy, her emotion was so raw and surreal that I found myself easily moved by them.
Two that stuck out to me, "Slave" and "Uncle" really did it for me, especially the latter. I've known people in that situation and it just makes me sick to no end to know that there are people in this world like that.
I'm so very sorry for Shay after reading her book that she (or anyone) had to go through what she did to bring about such great poetry, but sometimes pain is the best muse we as artists can ask for.