[Dis]Connected: Poems and Stories of Connection and Otherwise | Review

Title: [Dis]Connected: Poems and Stories of Connection and Otherwise
Authors: Michelle Halket, Sara Bond , Nikita Gill, Pierre Alex Jeanty, Amanda Lovelace, Canisia Lubrin, Trista Mateer, Cyrus Parker, Yena Sharma Purmasir, Iain S. Thomas, Liam Ryan, R.H. Swaney
Pages: 224 pages
Version: Ebook (ARC)
Publisher: Central Avenue Publishing
Rating: ★★★

Synopsis

Humanity exists in a hyper connected world, where our closest friends, loves and enemies lie but a keyboard stroke away. Few know this better than the poets who have risen to the top of their trade by sharing their emotion, opinion and art with millions of fans.Combining the poetic forces of some of today’s most popular and confessional poets, this book presents poems and short stories about connection wrapped up in a most unique exercise in creative writing. Follow along as your favorite poets connect with each other; offering their poetry to the next poet who tells a story based on the concept presented to them. With poetry, stories and art, [Dis]Connected is a mixed media presentation of connection, isolation, love and loneliness.  


Review 

This book was provided by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Central Avenue Publishing and Netgalley!

[Dis]Connected is a collection of poems and short stories written by numerous authors. Each writer was assigned a poem by another writer, and had to write a short story based on that poem.

I requested a copy of [Dis]Connected via Netgalley because I really love Amanda Lovelace and R.H. Swaney, and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to discover new poets. Unfortunately, I didn’t really like this book because it was really not what I was expecting.

I think that the idea behind [Dis]Connected was really original but I didn’t enjoy every poem and/or short story. I know that with every anthology, it’s hard to like every poem/short story, but I don’t know, I think I expected more of this book because Amanda Lovelace and R.H. Swaney, two of my favourite poets, contributed to this collection.

It was also a bit obvious that some authors aren’t used to writing short stories and some of the stories had nothing to do with the poems. It was like some of the authors read the poem and then wrote something completely different.

It was hard for me to read all the short stories, but I did, however, enjoy reading the last part of the book filled with poems. I’m still going to check out the other authors and read some of their poetry collections because I really liked the poems and I will not judge them by their short stories.