Shawna Scott’s PIECES FROM MY HEART lives up to its title, in that the collection consists of a number of poems that appear to come straight from the poet’s emotional experiences, written raw and clear on the paper like, well, pieces of a heart. Scott’s feelings and sensual experiences shine through the poems, whether she’s talking about the songs of a lover or the experience of a coffee cup in the morning. The poems draw their effectiveness and emotional impact from their directness and their connection to her own life and feelings – the closer a poem is to her own life, the more powerful it is. The converse holds true, though – the more distant a poem is from Scott’s strongest and rawest emotions, whether about soldiers in Iraq or affirmations of religious beliefs, the more it feels as though she is simply reciting a creed, and the less power the poem holds.

Most of the poems are in free verse, though with a some poems Scott experiments with rhyme. With a few exceptions, most of these are set to a rhythm that is quick and direct–short sentences that convey energy, motion, and vigor. At its best, this rhythm adds a sense of frantic tension to the chilling “Jello,” about a patient in a mental hospital, or “I Am Here,” the first poem in the collection, about escape from an abusive spouse. It works less well with more languid, sensual, and romantic emotions, however, and sometimes the choppiness of the rhythm detracts from the tenderness of the more speculative and meditative poems, like “Emerald” or “Six Feet Below”. That doesn’t mean, though, that those poems aren’t worth reading – they both contain some cleverly-phrased food for thought – but they might have benefited a bit from a more drawn-out, slow-paced rhythmic structure, like the one in the poem “Sunshine.”

Scott’s real gift shines through particularly in her shortest poems, which pack a real punch. A number of these succeed very well in capturing the essence of a moment or a feeling in a few concise, carefully-chosen words – the poem “Me,” for example, is just a few quick “I” statements, but they give a clear, wry, insightful self-portrait, and the poem “Coffee” is a vivid and sensual image caught beautifully in six short lines. In short, there are some real gems here, and it’s definitely a collection worth looking through.

Shawna Scott’s PIECES FROM MY HEART is a volume of raw, heartfelt poetry about emotions, relationships, and finding oneself–marked by a steady, direct, almost choppy rhythm that works well with some of the poems and less well with others.

~Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader