Recommended Reading – Donovan’s Bookshelf

I wanted to let everyone know that another review of my book is now “live” and online on the “Recommended Reading – Donovan’s Bookshelf” monthly feature.
Donovan’s Literary Services. It appears in the October 2021 issue: http://donovansliteraryservices.com/october-2021-issue.html

Musings, Woolgathering, & Ghosts blends poetic prose and photos by CK Sobey in a reflective collection that bows to spirituality, philosophical discourse, and poetic literary life inspections without fully adhering to these genres alone. Her ability to weave these stories into a collection filled with coherent, rambling, yet pointed probes into life’s surprises and evolutionary processes lends to a collection ripe with the fruits of a poetic time out that consider different processes of living.

The Foreword provides an autobiographical introduction that maintains, “I had been in a cocoon of solitude for over two years./When the Coronavirus arrived, the forced isolation already felt familiar.”

As Sobey reflects that, “The creative spirit yearns for ideas to be born,” these emergences are traced in a series of poetic vignettes that incorporate a sense of mindfulness about world observations, nature, and one’s place within it.

Take “Offerings,” for one example. The poem begins with a close observation of a restaurant experience, then moves to broader horizons: “Each selection was deliciously described./He looked right in my eyes as he spoke./By the end, I was spellbound./How to choose one dish over the other?/Would my palate be satisfied with just one choice?/…I have come to realize that every day offers me something special.”

The experience boils down to accepting all kinds of offerings, realizing that life’s smorgasbord involves making the right decision at the right time.

“Reminiscing” talks about one door closing and another opening as Sobey visits a soon-to-be-closed store (“I went to visit the store today and mourn.”) and acknowledges the sense of “community grief” in a shared experience of demise.

“A Yield of Plenty” maintains that “At times there is so much want inside us.” The result? “We live our life day to day,/just existing./We forget how to harvest our yield of plenty.”

Musings, Woolgathering, & Ghosts is about yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows. It’s about absorbing the grief of time’s passage, moving on, and learning to reap that harvest.

Readers who look for nuggets of wisdom from those who routinely hide from life, then emerge into its wonders like butterflies will find Musings, Woolgathering, & Ghosts a powerful display of reflections. It blends mourning and mindfulness with nature-rooted words to keep readers thinking about their own isolation, growth, and interactions with the world.

Musings, Woolgathering, & Ghosts is the perfect panacea and reflection for these Covid-bound years, and will reach many hearts which have taken the time to move from artificially fast-paced living to incorporate meaning and purpose into the beat of life.

Given the treat provided here, readers should look forward to more works by CK Sobey currently in the pipeline.