‘Sweet Oblivion’ is Jasmin Loren’s debut poetry collection.
The poems within showcase a soul laid bare for all to see and demonstrate the struggles each and every one us faces at some point in our lives.
The poems within ‘Sweet Oblivion’ cover a variety of themes, from life and love to heartache and death, and if these poems show nothing else, they show how resilient we are as human beings.
Our souls can be crushed, our hope extinguished, but we will always find a way to not only survive, but to thrive and move forward, stronger than before.
| Smashwords | ebook | 3140 | indie | Poetry | July 24th, 2017 |
Most of us know Jasmin aka Jazz of I Swoon Over Fictional Men… and as such you may be preparing yourself to read this review thinking I may be biased. Choice is yours, but as a disclaimer I would like to add, that while I generally am a decent person, I would not kiss anyone’s ass just for the sake of knowing them. I like to believe my Estonian nature of character does not allow me to be fake… xoxo is something I always cringe over, hearts and kisses emojis are something I use more freely as of late but I still find them to be way too liberal for my liking. Basically, I don’t hand out compliments for the sake of chit chat, I don’t gush over your reviews or books for the sake of being apart of the Fangirl Club- if I send you a heart emoji, virtual hugs, or compliment your work then you better believe I am being honest because praise? In my eyes you gotta earn it to receive it! My point is… am I biased? I can tell you, I’m not… just because I know Jazz through book blogging has not had an impact on this review.
Aaaanyway, after this superlong purge of an introduction, let’s go back to the title in the spotlight- ‘Sweet Oblivion‘!
In the Introduction to the poetry collection ‘Sweet Oblivion‘, Jasmin says:
Sweet Oblivion, for me, is so much more than a book. It’s my soul laid bare for all to see. The poems within cover a variety of themes, from the joys of life to the heartache of death.
This is exactly what Jasmin has done… The poems are grouped into categories of ‘life’, ‘love’, ‘heartache’ and ‘death’, and I just realized that quite simply the collection goes through a life cycle much like humans do.
This collection of poetry holds within itself a beautiful example of crafty penmanship through which Jasmin demonstrates every possible human emotion. It is not delivered in a complicated verse. The verse is simple yet effective and there are lines upon lines to which most of us can relate to. Some lines are so powerful, that they took me back to certain moments in my own life.
For example, a poem called Hanami:
Cherry blossom petals drifted in the air
Pink and white raindrops in our hair
We sat beneath a tree drinking beer
Grinning and carefree, hearts filled with cheer.
Those carefree moments in our lives are so important and even though we tend to remember the hardships and horrors of our lives more vividly, these simple joyful moments written into poetry help us remember the simple pleasures of life. After reading Hanami, I was transported back to an early morning, 5AM I believe it was, some 10 years back. I was alone, my boot laces undone trailing behind me, the sun was rising, the morning dew filled the air with freshness and I swear that moment in time made my heart want to burst out of my chest. It was just the instance of this moment that made me want to sit on the highway and have it repeat in a loop for eternity. Have you ever had such moments? Let me know in the comments
