Review of Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings, by Gabriela Marie Milton

On this wintry Tuesday morning, I find myself pausing to stare out into the dark portal of my backyard window, while my fingers hover over the keyboard to conjure an appropriate review for this poetic masterpiece.  I’m no poet, so below you’ll find my best attempt. I hope it will inspire you to read this, and other works by Gabriela, and experience them for yourself.

I was unable to find a synopsis, but this is a book of poetry, after all. Instead, I’m posting the Foreword:

Gabriela is the type of poet Robert Graves had in mind when he referred to being a poet as a condition- rather than a profession. During my correspondence with Milton, it became clear that the lush scenes and stories were not invented as much as they were unleashed. They came from a mind always teeming with ideas, anticipating these moments of expression when the stuff of thought finds its form in lines, rhythm and stanzas.

As Milton said in an interview, “The days in which I cannot write, I have to compartmentalize my brain and my soul, and then bury my fantasies . . . It’s as if I must exorcise my alter ego.”

Yes, Gabriela Marie Milton is a poet of condition.

Her poetry also takes on a cosmopolitan character, introducing the reader to diverse, sometimes fantastical, spaces. In some of these spaces, I cannot help but see fragments of her life flickering by – of being raised in Europe or of her extensive travels before and after settling in the United States. But in all this movement, we’re greeted by a common theme: the universality and borderlessness of love and passion. This is where her collection truly shines and this is where her poetry must be experienced rather than explained.

Foreword written by: Brian Geiger

Editor of Vita Brevis Press

My Thoughts:

I’m one that habitually looks for hidden meanings in descriptions and words. This is where I had to adapt this thinking and do what Brian Geiger has suggested, “to experience rather than explain.”

Once absolved of these tendencies, I was able to fully immerse into the abstract, yet well-mastered palette of imagery, orchestrated by this gifted poet. Here is just one example:

Nordic Play

an island shimmers on the Nordic Sea

your eyes are madness and pale blue

under your fingers the piano

ennobles pain and makes the snow to fall

play the melancholy of winter

white adulterated by a frozen mauve

I’ll make the bed and walk in silence

to the place of roses and cinnamon

don’t follow me

remain and play under the blues of winter

the scented mystery of all the women

who never knew

the fires hidden

in the glaciers of your soul

I highly recommend this book for anyone who savors astral projection to wolf moonlit plains and sun ripened vines of tomatoes bursting with the flavors of scintillating verse.  

Five stars!

Please note that I only post reviews on books I deem four or five stars. Life is short and if I don’t like a book, I simply won’t finish it.

Meet Gabriela:

Gabriela Marie Milton is an Amazon bestselling poet and an internationally published author. She is the author of the #1 best-selling poetry collection Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose, and the author of Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings. Gabriela is also the editor of MasicadoresUSA. Her poetry and short prose have appeared in various magazines and anthologies. Under the pen name Gabriela M she was awarded 2019 Author of the Year at Spillwords Press (NYC). Her piece “If I say I love you” was nominated for 2020 Spillwords Press Publication of the Year (Poetic). On July 6, 2021, Gabriela was featured in New York Glamour Magazine.

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