Review: Rise by Henry Lee Thomas

Broken up into distinct thematic sections – “Love & Family,” “Spiritual & Inspirational,” “Nature,” and “Philosophical & Social” – followed by a short fiction section, Rise: Poetry for Lovers and Thinkers by Henry Lee Thomas covers an impressively wide sprawl of topics and poetic forms.

Some of the pieces follow traditional rhyme schemes in this varied collection, while others are more narrative and free in their flow. The romance-inspired poetry reveals an intense, hot-hearted passion that the poet doesn’t always know how to control. Desperation and deep desire conspire in these poems, along with a see-saw of joy and struggle as love slips in and out of the speaker’s fingers.

The spiritual pieces in the second section are straightforward and packed with advice from lived experience, though some of the lessons are somewhat trite, which is not helped by the frequent slant rhyme and vaguely forced pairings. Common images and unsurprising metaphors could be polished with more creativity to deliver truly memorable lines. This second chapter also dives into existential questions of purpose, religion, emotions, and fulfillment. While some poems are superficial, there are flashes of clean clarity, such as “Peace, Be Still.”

The poems focusing on nature are some of the most relaxing and emotional in the collection, ranging from memories of travel to visceral experiences among the granular wonders of nature. “Air Affair” is one of the few haikus in the book, but it’s a strong and simple offering, as are the pleasant musings of “Babbling Brook” and “Humans in the Wild.” The final chapter addressing social issues feels timely and relevant, touching on the impacts of Covid-19 and political strife, as compared to the more abstract subjects of the other sections. Speaking directly at climate change fears, the pressures of wokeness, deadnaming, and gender fluidity, Thomas ends strong with these incisive and potentially controversial verses.

Within the early arc of the pieces, the individual ordering doesn’t often feel intentional, aside from the broad themes, so the reading experience can be disjointed. Some juxtapositions of the pieces are jarring, such as placing “Undefinable Love,” which celebrates the majesty of a seemingly perfect union, directly before “Relief,” a pleading poem of agony and release from a relationship on the cusp of being abandoned. Additionally, there are plenty of basic proofreading errors, i.e. “savior” instead of “savor” and “loave” instead of “love.” In a poetry collection, every linguistic choice is impactful, and sloppy editing can quickly undercut a poem’s seriousness.

On a similar note, the images haphazardly placed throughout the book are heavy-handed in their simplicity or low in quality, similar to old-school Clip Art or stock photos. The formatting choices are interesting, at times, such as the visually onomatopoeic “Drifting, ” but other enjambment choices are seemingly chosen at random, disrupting the flow of phrases and ideas without a clear purpose.

As a whole, this collection needs a firm editorial hand for proofreading, ordering, visual accompaniment, and imagery, but the ambition and passion behind these poems make for a wide-ranging and emotive collection.