Friday, September 27, 2024

Review of "Wild Hope" by Donna Ashworth

This is a collection of, mostly, poetry; mostly free-form verse, with some traditional verse, and some prose paragraphs.  Given the format, there is less material than might be supposed by the page count.

The book jacket promises "healing words to find light on dark days."  The content is inspirational and uplifting, for the most part.  It emphasizes the beauty and value in the ordinary aspects of life.  It does mention grief and loss at times.  However, the blurb should possibly promise hope for *somewhat* dark days.  Ashworth never gets anywhere near a Psalm 88 level of darkness, so the content tends to have a "social media," or even "Hallmark," level feel to it.  (I might have saved myself the trouble of reading the book if I had read the author bio first: the author is a media "influencer.")  For those seriously grieving or depressed it can definitely feel cliched and platitudinous.

While there isn't necessarily anything wrong with it, a better title might have been "Mild Hope."

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