Book review – Light and Shade (Spoiler Free)

“It’s easy to write / of eternal night / and to compose / flowery verses / about one’s mortality / but many a poet curses / the reality / behind his poetry.”

• Title: Light and Shade: Serious (and Not So Serious) Poems
• Author: K. Morris
• Genre: Poetry
• Pages: 127 pages
• Publication date: June 2020

K. Morris runs a blog that I follow all the time, so of course I had to read his book, Light and Shade: Serious (and Not So Serious) Poems. The book itself is split into two sections. The first one has serious poems that focus on love, nature, and time, while the second section has silly, humorous poems.

I didn’t expect the poems to be so relevant even though this book was recently published. Some poems were about the coronavirus and the social distancing that followed. It was interesting to read about in a refreshing way instead of a political way.

Between the two sections, the serious poems were definitely my favorite part. I wish that section was longer. There were a few poems in there I had to read a couple of times, because they struck me.

My major critique would be the unbalance between the first and second section. The second section seemed double the amount of the first. After a while of the silly poems, I wanted some serious ones. Many poems in the second section covered the same concepts as the first, so they could’ve worked intertwined. Or perhaps the flow would feel better if the sections were more equal in page numbers.

The serious poems had a more elegant factor to them though. They ran smoother than a few of the sillier ones, which had some rhymes that seem stretched.

Overall, I did enjoy the poems. They gave me a fresh escape. As someone who has only been to England once, it was cool to read poems set there. The book is a quick, light-hearted read for anyone looking for one.

Score: 8.3/10
Average rating on Goodreads: 4.5/5