Seasons of Life
...a sneak peak at the poetry
Reviews
Reviewed by Diana Lopez
Seasons of Life showcases joyful and nostalgic poetry that captures beautiful moments in Susan McLeod’s life. She focuses on four main topics: childhood, family, seasons of life, and holidays where she describes different activities of her life and family. In the beginning, we get to know her closely with her vivid memories, childhood experiences, games, and coexistence. She also tells of her activities with her mother, father, and grandparents. She then focuses on depicting the positive aspects of the seasons and concludes by exalting the joy of some of her most classic holidays. Seasons of Life is a clear demonstration of a harmonious family environment. The feelings this work conveys are comforting and pleasant.
Susan McLeod uses simple poetry with a melodious structure. Her sentences are harmonious and convey quiet moments. I liked how she was so open with her feelings. Her childhood took place when television and photographs were in black and white. For this reason, she narrates moments like walking with her grandpa or visiting her grandma’s farm. She takes sensations into account too when she talks about being at the beach or a fair and gives a lot of importance to colors, so it is easy to imagine the scenes she depicts. One of my favorite parts is when she talks about holidays as she uses specific details; for example, at Christmas, she describes the candles that catch her attention in a church. I recommend Seasons of Life to all audiences, especially those who want to relax or evoke beautiful images.
Whether they are positive or negative, we all have similar stages and relationships in our lives. Throughout this collection of short poems in Seasons of Life, we can see ourselves as a child blowing out a candle on a birthday cake or enjoying a game of America’s favorite pastime: baseball. From playing with dolls to high school graduation, from flying a kite to eating chocolate pudding, someone can relate.
Seasons of Life by Susan McLeod is an inventory of McLeod’s life. She has devoted a poem to each of the seasons, experiences, and family members that she felt was worthy enough of such devotion. The images harken back to a simpler time when families all went to the beach for the summer, to the drive-in movies at night, and to the fair in the fall. Each moment is bathed in a cheery light that makes one smile.
The simplicity of the language within this collection of poems makes it accessible to a broader range of readers. McLeod’s description of her life through poetry will also capture the interest of younger and older readers alike. Younger readers will delight in the simplistic imagery of experiences that they may have had recently gone through themselves. Older readers will look back fondly on milestones in McLeod’s life that may take them back to their childhood.
Seasons of Life, by Susan McLeod, offers readers bite-sized poems that do not intimidate with complex imagery and vocabulary. Readers may pick it up at their leisure, flip to any page, and enjoy a poem in their spare time. I highly recommend this book for anyone willing to reminisce about the “good ol’ days” with nothing but feelings of positivity, unity, and harmony to create a similar mood within the reader.
Midwest Book Review
Reviewed by D. Donovan
Poetry readers who choose Seasons of Life will find it a collection spanning childhood, coming-of-age, and adulthood. It offers inspections both personal and universal as it discusses family, holidays, and the “four seasons” of growth which tie them together.In many ways, Seasons of Life represents a throwback … to simpler times and to rhythms lost in the modern swing towards free verse, much of which has almost lost the ability to be defined as ‘poetry’. The rhyming simplicity of Susan McLeod’s effort alludes to a time when poetry was both readily understandable and rhythmically attractive. One example lies in her survey of various kids’ games, such as ‘Hoops’: “Roll, roll our hoops on the grass they go/Which way they fall, we don’t know/Playing with our hoops was lots of fun/Kept my friends and I on the run/I remember a simpler time/When playing hoops was very fine“.
Modern poetry readers seem to look for and embrace a sense of complexity and philosophical musing in their works. The progressive short pieces in this collection pack a lot of punch into a number of succinct descriptions of life, allowing for more experiences to be explored than one would think by the page count of this book.
Seasons of Life is a road map of experiences of a bygone era. The cadence of the rhyme, the simple daily life experiences which are presented with a sense of joy rather than complexity, and the attention to swimming holes, summer days, and family comfort is a breath of fresh air against the usual angst-laden emotional turmoil of modern poetry. It will attract readers seeking expressions of life’s progression in a more celebratory manner than most poetic inspections offer.
Find the book at the following locations
