An arresting goldmine of emotive poems that strikes a delicate balance between fragility and durability.
Pause for a moment and reflect on five words. “We’ve been intimate without touching.” It is with this sort of evocative simplicity that Ana Dee conducts the symphony of emotion that exists within her love-themed treasure chest, Untouched. This bare collection takes readers on a deceptively complex journey possessing a shared point of origin and a single destination, love. Love in its various shades. Love and what it feels like when it is young, when it is distanced, when it is flailing. Divided into six striking parts, these poignant poems give no warning for the emotional tidal wave each section might unleash. Truly a master of precision, Ana Dee makes crafting language into a mood look like child’s play. One example, Your Eyes, is compact in construction, but terms like surrender, envy, and appetite not only serve as focal points but push the poem to a new height, one reserved only for lovers. This poetic portrait, however, is not a saccharine-sweet joyride. Like a delicate rose still dressed in its thorns, this collection is a true exposé of the heart’s ability to willingly hold one person hostage to another.
By harnessing the raw power of nature, the author instinctively highlights the peaks and valleys of emotion in a resonant way. Even if audiences have never successfully articulated their own inner musings in such a refined manner, these razor-sharp poems will work like guided meditation. Drawing inspiration from phenomena such as lightning and wind, waves of the sea, a delicate snowflake, and winter and summer helps paint evocative pictures that are beautiful and easy to visualize. Embracing metaphor in this way and distilling the essence of love into concise statements works like a fast-acting balm to aching souls, hearts racing with ecstasy, and anyone who has ever experienced love deeply. Emphasizing the transformative power and possibility of love, this illustrative collection teeters back and forth between sizzling hot and icy cold. As with any poetic journey, individual poems will sit differently depending on the perspective of the reader. Still, the import is obvious in certain stanzas. “I wish I could stretch myself across the ocean that divides us, reach the coastline of your lips and let the sweeping waves guide us.” An achingly gorgeous way to give voice to longing, Untouched: A Poetry Collection is an arresting goldmine of emotive poems that strikes a delicate balance between fragility and durability.
