Rhyme With Reason: PoetTrees Galleries / Volume I [Hardcover]

PoetTree (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: 1st Book Library (February 16, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1414046782
• ISBN-13: 978-1414046785
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,519,119 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not Worth the Money or the Time, September 15, 2011

By 

Julie Doe (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rhyme With Reason: PoetTrees Galleries / Volume I (Paperback)

I purchased the ebook version of this, which was less expensive than the paper version. However, this book was so bad, it's not worth any price. As indicated by the title, this book contains rhymed poetry. However, this vanity-published book suffers from a number of failures:

1. The layout is poor: The book is divided into 21 "parts", each containing a handful of poems about a specific topic. Each part utilizes a different font (some repetition of fonts may occur). Some of the fonts - including fancy italic fonts and fonts with curliques on the serifs - are extremely difficult to read. I had to read very slowly and try to pick out letters at times. I quickly got a headache. Fonts also occasionally vary in size within a part

1a. The cover is amateurish; this alone wouldn't be enough to ruin a book for me, though.

2. Grammar: Ouch! Double ouch! Mr. Stanton has a poor grasp of English grammar. Pronouns - particularly "of" - are used incorrectly and at inappropriate times. Subject/verb agreement is shaky at times. Apostrophes are used for plurals and omitted at some possessives and contractions. Other words are used incorrectly; for example, "nimble" in the following lines: "At night my hands rest asleep, / nimbled contently in peace" (this is but one of numerous examples). Misspellings abound (every page or other page!). And many of these misspellings would have been caught by simply running spell-check on the original document. Some examples of grammar problems include:

"The computers today play a significant roll,"
"Though disheileded by the raging winds"
"The Stream of our Visions / runs threw our Veins"
"Startled shrieking lightening, / awakenes dormant fears" (2 for 1!)
"Our Children Is Our Future" (this is the title of a poem)
"As the winds awake their sleep,"

These mistakes occur on almost every page and do not fall under "poetic license"; they are simply MISTAKES. And the continual abuse of the English langUage made it very hard for me to step back and look at the poetic technique and the message of the poems. Unfortunately, when I finally managed to do so, I was not impressed.

3. Poetic Technique: The poems in this book exhibit the primary problem - forced rhyme - that I see in beginning poets who try to write in rhyme; often words seem to be thrown in to fit the rhyme scheme rather. Imagery when used is generic and unoriginal. Abstract or cliched phrases are used in place of a real or deeper look at a particular topic, bit of description, etc.

4. Message: In Mr. Stanton's own words: "Please understand, that I am confused, / such words that you say, tell me nothing of you." (from "Fabricational [sic] Fictional Phrases"). Because of the weaknesses noted above, I really didn't get much from these poems. Although some poems expressed a clear opinion or had a clear message, the view point did not come across as unique or interesting. There is no meat to these poems, nothing to spark deeper thought.

Overall, I can't recommend this book. It's overly long, contains very weak poetry, and is often hard to read thanks to poor font choices. Spend your money elsewhere, poetry lovers.