Rating: 3 stars
Headline: Exploring themes of family, faith, and nature, “Lyrical Voices” is a good collection that needed a bit more variety to stand out
Review:
Lyrical Voices is the new poetry collection by joint collaboration Lakella Taylor and Frankie L. Fipps. Written in a distinctive first person style, poems within this book’s 140 pages include close study on a variety of key themes, including the role of family, faith and nature.
Taylor and Fipps’ poetic styles work well together within conventional approaches, with most poems written as non-rhyming, single stanzas lasting between a quarter to a full page. A highlight within the collection is “Favorite Tune”, which is written to give the impression of a fast tempo, high energy, environment where the speaker is recounting the joy of listening to their favourite song. All of the poems are well thought through and written in a meaningful way, with strong religious undertones feeding through onto the page. Doing so builds a strong sense of Taylor and Fipps’ backgrounds and creative inspirations.
Even though it represents a collaboration between two poets, Taylor’s work dominates the lion’s share of Lyrical Voices, with her poems featuring 123 times, versus Fipps, who includes only 16 of his own. With such a limited involvement, it is questionable as to whether Taylor should have published this book in her own right.
There is also the question of formatting. About halfway through the alignment of the poems switches, from left alignment to centred, with no clear reason as to why stylistically this decision has been made. As a result the change comes across as abrupt and as if two collections have been forced together at some point during the publishing process.
Given the collection spans over a hundred pages in length, the first person perspective becomes quite repetitive after a time. That is not to say the poems themselves are bad, but a differing third person viewpoint would have helped elevate the collection and allowed for expansion of character development and the events and landscapes they interact with.
Lyrical Voices is good, but there are areas where it could have been better. It needed more variety in its approach and better formatting to stand out in a crowded poetry market. Possible food for thought for the publication these two poets turn their attention to.
AEB Reviews
Links:
Reedsy Discovery Review: AEB Reviews – “Lyrical Voices” by Lakella Taylor and Frankie L. Fipps
Purchase Link: “Lyrical Voices” by Lakella Taylor and Frankie L. Fipps (Amazon)
**
My Housemate's a Mermaid 