Book: The
Day My Kisses Tasted Like Discord
Author: Emmanuella
Hristova
No. of
pages: 50
Publication
date: April 2018
Synopsis:
The Day My Kisses
Tasted Like Disorder
is a short collection of poems that explores a tumultuous year of love,
heartbreak and unimaginable loss. It documents the birth and death of a
relationship, and the death of my sister. Each poem is an emotional time-stamp
that plunges the reader into the depths of my feelings as they burgeon and
wane. The book reads like a diary and chronicles the boundaries of the things
that we all feel: passion, heartache, and pain that gives way to hope.
Book Review by Nadaness In Motion
The Day My Kisses
Tasted Like Discord
is a raw and emotional poetry collection by Emmanuella Hristova.
At first I was at a
loss with the arrangement and titling of the poems. But I realized that they're
done in a historic kind of arrangement with some days having more than one poem
written. Many pieces don't have titles just dates.
A note to remind
oneself when reading poetry collections, especially those in free verse, not
everyone breaks lines the same way. I disliked many of the line breaks in The
Day My Kisses Tasted Like Discord but that could just be me and others
might prefer them that way.
The poem titled "September
29th" is one of the beautiful ones I enjoyed in the first half,
though I disliked the repetition of 'and' and some of the line breaks.
"Upon
Success" is
a short piece that every person everywhere in the world can relate to. It's
short and I'll quote it; I didn't like the line-breaks here either.
"America
is a weird place where/we leave the/people we love to/pursue little green
pieces of/paper and ink to/fill empty slots on/our resumes."
I felt that the piece
titled "October 5th" was more prose than
poetry but I loved the imagery. "October
9th" is brimming with stunning imagery, dark, and just wow!
"I hesitate
when you kiss me because I/ am afraid you will taste the disaster/brewing
underneath my skin. Or maybe/my kisses taste hot, like a dangerous/sun storm
raging on the broiling/surface of our most familiar star."
- that's just a sample of "October 9th" which is a long and
gorgeous poem.
Another important
note about The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Discord is that there are many
pieces handling sexual and physical abuse. The poems are powerful. Like these
lines from "October 17th":
"Letting
my lips touch yours/was a contract I signed/without reading the fine print: participant
subject to hasty sexual advances/ without warning."
I couldn't get the
poem "November 14th," it was odd with a
dry tone and felt more like a series of commandments. "November
16th" reads like a broken down prose piece but is full of strong
imagery.
Other 5-star
pieces in Hristova's The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Discord include:
"October 18th," "October 19th," "Upon Saying Thank You,"
"Upon Inspiration," "November 17th," "December 15th,"
and "Upon Celebrating International Women's Day."
"You
came, conquered,/stole my heart and/left me with a Moleskin full of/pensive
poems documenting unrequited love/exposed on cream, lined pages." - "Upon Inspiration"
I must admit that the
second half of the book was much better than the first half. The poems were
longer and deeper after the 50% mark. That said, "Upon Diluting
Myself" and "Upon Being a Woman" are the most
powerful pieces in the entire collection. 10 stars each
of these.
"Upon Diluting
Myself" is
long but super powerful. It's also explicit, painful, eye-opening, and
emancipating, all at the same time. Similarly, "Upon Being
a Woman" is the most painful piece
in The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Discord. It does have a lot of Spanish
words, which I couldn't understand. The poem is probably the longest in the
collection but speaks for a lot of women suffering from sexual abuse.
"Upon
inheritance" is
a sad and painful piece that nearly made me cry.
Last but certainly
not least, The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Discord ends with "Here's
to the Woman," Hristova's perfect conclusion to her emotionally raw
poetry collection that I believe is dedicated to all women out there.
This collection was
hard for me to judge, but my overall rating is: 4
stars.
Note: I received a
free copy of The Day My Kisses Tasted Like Discord from its author Emmanuella
Hristova in exchange for an honest review.
About the Author:
She began writing
poetry at age twenty-four when she was in graduate school. She earned her
Master's in Education from the same alma mater in 2017. Emmanuella spent two
years as an English teacher in Richmond, California. During that time, she
self-published her first poetry collection: The Day My Kisses Tasted Like
Disorder. Currently, she is writing her first novel.
