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Bright Needles
Bright Needles is uncompromising poetry. Myth is mixed in equal measure with gritty realism.
- GenresPoetry
78 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 19, 2014
15 people want to read
About the author
Anais Chartschenko
14 books38 followers Anaïs Chartschenko hails from the Canadian wilderness. She has come to enjoy such modern things as electric tea kettles.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 31, 2022
UPDATED 2022. There aren't many poets I go back to again and again and am consistently rewarded. Chartschenko is and even this being her first collection, her creative nature and relentless honesty hits on the notes I gravitate towards when I read poetry. No punches pulled. Full throttle. A soul bleeding on paper. That's what her poetry feels like and can't wait to re-revisit :)
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I recently read a poetry collection by a Nobel laureate. It was nice, but you could see the thought going into it. Even when some lines spoke of something personal, there was restraint and you could see the writer tip toeing around emotions.
There is no tiptoeing here.
Anaïs Chartschenko walks the fiery path of her emotions and delivers one of the most intensely honest collections I've ever read.
This is raw poetry. Beautifully and intensely raw at that. You wonder how much of what is captured here is inspiration and how much of the source material is from real life. I found myself again and again reading and being floor by how deep these lines carve. I've recently begun to read more poetry and have for some time always had a poetry collection running while I read other works and I can honestly say this is as candid as Bukowski, but no vulgarity, just pure raw emotion.
I picked this collection up not really sure what to expect and what I found is yet another indie author that has impressed me and leaves me intensely curious as to what is next. If you want to read something that is as deep and personal as a page can hold, this is a wonderful example of just that.
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I recently read a poetry collection by a Nobel laureate. It was nice, but you could see the thought going into it. Even when some lines spoke of something personal, there was restraint and you could see the writer tip toeing around emotions.
There is no tiptoeing here.
Anaïs Chartschenko walks the fiery path of her emotions and delivers one of the most intensely honest collections I've ever read.
This is raw poetry. Beautifully and intensely raw at that. You wonder how much of what is captured here is inspiration and how much of the source material is from real life. I found myself again and again reading and being floor by how deep these lines carve. I've recently begun to read more poetry and have for some time always had a poetry collection running while I read other works and I can honestly say this is as candid as Bukowski, but no vulgarity, just pure raw emotion.
I picked this collection up not really sure what to expect and what I found is yet another indie author that has impressed me and leaves me intensely curious as to what is next. If you want to read something that is as deep and personal as a page can hold, this is a wonderful example of just that.
April 30, 2018
This is a beautiful collection of poetry. My favorite poems where "Just" and "Strands" They are both shorter poems, but the elegance of the word choice and the evocation of emotion are powerful. I would recommend this collection to anyone searching for an outlet of emotion. Every poem is laced with feeling that jumps off the pages.
January 26, 2018
Great emotion in every poem. Beautiful.
August 25, 2017
AMAZING
Reading these poems was like being swept away in a beautiful cyclone of dark emotions. So much truth and pain and honesty. What a wonderful poet! I love the themes that Chartschenko is concerned with: fear; the loss of self through love; powerlessness; inner beauty and strength; suffering and the comfort of darkness.
This is a collection of wonderful, gritty and exquisitely painful poems. She has three books of poetry out right now and I read all three in a row (I started with The Weightless One, was totally spellbound and knocked off my feet, so read The Whisper Collector, and again was so sucked in and addicted by that point I had to read Bright Needles straight away). But that's how brilliant all three works are.
Read Chartschenko's work whether you are into poetry or not. It is essential reading, and a dizzying, astonishing experience.
Reading these poems was like being swept away in a beautiful cyclone of dark emotions. So much truth and pain and honesty. What a wonderful poet! I love the themes that Chartschenko is concerned with: fear; the loss of self through love; powerlessness; inner beauty and strength; suffering and the comfort of darkness.
This is a collection of wonderful, gritty and exquisitely painful poems. She has three books of poetry out right now and I read all three in a row (I started with The Weightless One, was totally spellbound and knocked off my feet, so read The Whisper Collector, and again was so sucked in and addicted by that point I had to read Bright Needles straight away). But that's how brilliant all three works are.
Read Chartschenko's work whether you are into poetry or not. It is essential reading, and a dizzying, astonishing experience.
February 17, 2017
Bright Needles is a short book of poetry by Anais Chartschenko. It’s a raw, unflinchingly honest 58 pages by a very talented writer. I’m not the biggest reader of poetry, but I blew through this book very quickly. Anais pulls absolutely no punches in this book, and yet the poetry flowed like music, which makes a great deal of sense since Anais is also a musician. In fact, there were a lot of times while reading Bright Needles that I was reminded of Tom Waits. Like Waits, many of Chartschenko’s poems display the strange truth that there’s sometimes beauty in pain, and there’s a great deal of beauty to be had in Bright Needles. I’m hoping to see Anais turn her skills towards writing longer works at some point in the future. If she brings the same skill to bear that she shows in Bright Needles, it’ll be a hell of a read.
Fans of poetry should absolutely go and get this book right now. I have a feeling you’ll be glad you did.
Fans of poetry should absolutely go and get this book right now. I have a feeling you’ll be glad you did.
October 4, 2016
“Bright Needles,” by Anaïs Chartschenko is exactly what the description says- uncompromising poetry, where myth is mixed in equal measure with gritty realism. It is a raw and deep compilation of free verse and haiku poetry. The poems are dark and painful, revealing in their winding flow of words a vivid imagination and a past fraught with discord. The part I love most about her writing is the way she can encompass a meaning within the lines, alluding to an idea without stating it clearly.
When I read the first poem in the second part, “How to Even Say,” I stopped and took a deep breath. It is one of the most intense, truthful poems I’ve ever read. There are so many people who go through heartache, anxiety, depression… but it is difficult to put into words some of the more painful things we may go through. It’s more than difficult to express the thoughts that go through our minds when we feel fear and shrink into ourselves. This poem conveyed it well. Many more after it had the same effect. The urge to escape, to forget, to purify… losing all sense of self. They are a bit intoxicating.
In the third part, there is a poem called, “You Are.” The message I took away from it is, there is always beauty, and there is always a choice to change. There is a dark theme to it, and then there is more. This sentence stuck out to me… “You are worth all of the effort because there is no other you.” Beautiful words from a soul full of depth.
I can’t begin to go into detail on everything that deserves recognition in this book of utterly candid poetry. There are too many aspects to touch base on. I highly suggest you give it a read.
When I read the first poem in the second part, “How to Even Say,” I stopped and took a deep breath. It is one of the most intense, truthful poems I’ve ever read. There are so many people who go through heartache, anxiety, depression… but it is difficult to put into words some of the more painful things we may go through. It’s more than difficult to express the thoughts that go through our minds when we feel fear and shrink into ourselves. This poem conveyed it well. Many more after it had the same effect. The urge to escape, to forget, to purify… losing all sense of self. They are a bit intoxicating.
In the third part, there is a poem called, “You Are.” The message I took away from it is, there is always beauty, and there is always a choice to change. There is a dark theme to it, and then there is more. This sentence stuck out to me… “You are worth all of the effort because there is no other you.” Beautiful words from a soul full of depth.
I can’t begin to go into detail on everything that deserves recognition in this book of utterly candid poetry. There are too many aspects to touch base on. I highly suggest you give it a read.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews