Your Words
by Louise Belanger
Review

YOUR WORDS

Louise is a new author, living in Canada

Poems and a story, 33 in all.

It’s about God, confinement due to Covid-19 pandemic, life, relationships, and lovely stories.

It will make you think, encourage you, inspire you, and bring a smile to your face.

It also contains beautiful photographs, as that is the second passion of the author.

SAY HI! TO AUTHOR – LOUISE BELANGER

Hi! I’m Louise Belanger. I live in Montreal, Canada and English is my second language.

I am a new self-published author. I started writing poetry in the spring of 2020, about a month after the pandemic hit the world. Three months later, I was holding my book, in my hand, for the first time. A day I will never forget.

Your Words is a beautiful collection of poems and photographs. it’s about different life subjects, about my relationship with God and how I turn to Him. Other poems are stories, some are for children. And the photographs complement the poetry.

The title for the book came to me when I wrote Everything belongs to You. The idea of adding photographs came later. Once the writing was done, I chose the photographs from the many I had taken over the years. I hope you will see the connection between a photo next to a poem.

Reading has always been a big part of my life. I don’t think I would have believed, a few years ago, if someone would have said, that one day, I would publish a book and people would enjoy it. But here we are 🙂

Each reader, each review, brings me such joy.

It is a beautiful journey that is continuing. I am hoping to publish my second book later this year.

I want to thank you so much, Yvonne, for adding Your Words to your wonderful blog. I am so grateful for your review.

Feel free to visit and chat with me via my Goodreads page.

Or connect with me via my Facebook page

As Louise mentions this poem in her Guest Post, I thought it appropriate that is the one I should share with you

EVERYTHING BELONGS TO YOU

Everything belongs to You

There are words that I organize

They change places in my head

Once I’m happy

They are here for all to see

But they are not mine

Everything belongs to You

It’s Your pen that scratches Your paper

It’s Your ink that flows

It’s Your ideas that birthed in my head

Your words that I rearrange

Something You guide me to read this morning

Triggered Your thought to wake up in my head

So I pick up Your pen and I scratch Your paper

With the beauty that came to life in my head

From Your hand to mine You flow through

Words You had already arranged

._.

Louise Belanger – May 12, 2020

REVIEW

“I will again”

I shall not be writing a conventional review of this collection, that simply feels like a rather disingenuous thing to do, given the very personal connection between the author and her words.

It is not like a fiction novel, a story with a beginning, a middle and an end, which needs to capture a reader and have them invest in the storyline and characters.

Neither is it a non-fiction true story, or a book designed to teach a skill or hobby, where the reader will have a pre-conceived expectation of what they want the book to achieve for them as an individual.

Poetry is a uniquely personal collection of thoughts, which takes you, as the author, on a journey in your mind as you consign your words to the page, then decide whether they are simply a series of random thoughts, or if you are going to set them to the ‘beat of the music’ which you have in your head as you write. You have no expectation or pre-conceived idea of how each of your readers is going to interpret your words, what feelings those words might engender in the reader, or what thoughts those readers are going to be left with when they have closed the final page – and to be honest, do you really care and should you really care? as the words are yours and yours alone!

As an occasional reader of poetry, I am probably not going to engage with every poem I read, in fact sometimes, it might only be one poem in a collection which stands out from all the others and ‘speaks’ to me, at that particular moment, in that certain way. When I revisit the book, sometimes not for many days, weeks, or even months, it might be a completely different poem which has that unique effect on my emotions and psyche, depending on my mood at the time.

It may not even be a whole poem, maybe just one individual verse extracted from a poem, or even a single sentence, which has the power to move my emotions, ease my mind, or stir my spirit, right there, right then. For me personally, poetry hones the senses as I read, in much the same way as music does as I listen to it, and a work of art can the longer I sit and gaze at it.

This is a collection which often reflects the author’s connection to her faith, which of course, I fully respect, especially during these uniquely troubled times we are currently battling through, each in our own individual way. Although their passion for God may not entirely resonate with me in quite the same way as they do the author, the essence of many of the individual poems perfectly reflect my own thoughts, insecurities and feelings at this present time. Many of them also make for ‘comforting’ reads right now.

I read the collection in a couple of hours, in a single sitting, so to rationalise my thoughts I decided to make a list of the poems as I went along and mark those which particularly made me stop, think, then read for a second time – for today only! I tried not to be swayed solely by the lovely photographs which accompanied each piece, so when I looked back on my doodling, I found that I actually had three pieces which had not only caused me to read them multiple times, but where the image had caught my eye as reflecting the words it accompanied, Walk Towards The Light; Go Where God Guides You Instead; and The Yellow Caterpillar And The Tiny Mouse, the last of those also making me smile, which in itself is a rare event in these troubling times!

I’m sure your journey will be completely different to my own, unique and individual – just like us!

Tomorrow is another day and my perspective may have changed completely by then!

A complimentary download of this book for review purposes, was kindly made available by the author and supplied for Kindle

Any thoughts or comments are my own personal opinion and I am in no way being monetarily compensated for this, or any other article which promotes this book or its author.

I personally do not agree with ‘rating’ a book, as the overall experience is all a matter of personal taste, which varies from reader to reader. However some review sites do demand a rating value, so when this review is posted to such a site, it will attract a well deserved 5 out of 5 stars!

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