Review: "Secrets and Gold" by Claire Ellis

 

Secrets and Gold by Claire Ellis
Illustrations by Jacquie Hughes
Published February 2023 via Cherish Editions
★★★

In the vein of Rupi Kaur, Bridgett Devoue, or Amanda Lovelace, Secrets and Gold leans into short, social-media-style poetry on themes of love, friendship, religion, and growth. A number of the friendship/romance poems can be read as written either about people in Ellis's life or about Jesus/God—I wasn't sure at first if I was reading too much into those (I've been reading some things with heavily religious themes recently), but some more overtly religious pages make me think this is intentional.

There are some lovely lines, like this from the poem "Grief Is Like Glitter": Glitter gets everywhere / sparkling, sweet and bitter (73).* Other poems, like "Pity Chorus" and "In Praise of Darkness," provide some food for thought. Generally, though, I tend to prefer poems that make me work for it—maybe it's the English grad in me, but I love being able to dissect a poem and find all its nuances, to think about different possible meanings and how the author constructed each line and chose each word. (It's one of the many reasons I think poetry is so hard to write: the fewer the words, the more each one has to count.) That's harder to do when poems are only a couple of lines or a short sentence long, and at times I found myself wondering what could have been made of some of these poems if connected into longer pieces. Readers who are fond of short and sweet, though, may find this a good fit.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a free review copy through NetGalley.

*Mine is a review copy, so the final text may differ.