Poetry Review: Heart Burn by Ginger Lee

August 27, 2020

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I met author Ginger Lee on social media and immediately loved her creativity on Instagram. When I saw she had published a new poetry book, I offered to review it and that was a great decision!

My first thoughts are that I love the cover. It’s simple, sparse, bold and says a lot about the contents. A picture tells a thousand words after all.

I also love the layout of the file I received — like the cover, there is a lot of white space and that gives me, as a reader, room to savour the words and take my time with the imagery conveyed.

A lot of the verses are heteronormatively gendered but there is a lot in there that could be read any way for any gender, which is refreshing.

Each poem is short, ranging from a sentence to perhaps ten lines. There are some gorgeous lines and I do appreciate the pacing and spacing in the file — it very much adds to the experience.

However, too much of a good thing can become saturating to the brain and this is where I think this collection suffers. With so many bitesize pieces, it’s hard to recognise new patterns and nuances. In my opinion, I think the collection would be far better suited to a physical book than an ebook so the layout can fully add to the reading experience. (Both versions are available).

Would I read more by Ginger Lee? Definitely — she has a beautiful way with words and I love the imagery those words evoke.