Title: Heed the Heart
Author: Wendy Negley
Publisher: Amazon KDP
ISBN: 979-8252642604
Pages: 128
Genre: Poetry
Reviewer: Ella Vincent
Hollywood Book Reviews
Heed the Heart is a heartfelt collection of poems that show the excitement, rewards, and sorrow of everlasting early love, death, and many other phases of life in between. Author Wendy Negley has written a poetry book that readers will love.
Heed the Heart begins with a collection of poems about love. Playful poems about love like “Get You a Cowboy shows the fun in the poem’s narrator falling for an outdoorsman: “Get you a cowboy/ and ride where he leads/He’ll always move forward/ Go where he proceeds/He’ll be by your side/And when life is over/ You’ve had a good ride.” The title poem, “Heed the Heart” also has a narrator advising readers to follow their hearts if they’re looking for love: “Heed the Heart/If once it speak/Heed it for the truth you seek.”
The middle section of Heed the Heart deals with death and the heartbreaking loss of loved ones that deeply impact people’s lives once they’re gone. One poem addresses the heart wrenching feeling of the narrator being torn between wanting a loved one to live and wanting them to be out of their pain in “For Dennis”: “ He did die/ And I was glad/ For he was out of pain/But I want him to know/He does still live/For me.” The last section of the collection, “Other Stuff” has poems about a variety of subjects like age in “Seventy-Six”: “I’m seventy-six/But I’m not out of tricks/I’m older and wiser/An able advisor”.
Heed the Heart is a wide-ranging collection of poems about a variety of life experiences. The poems have a relatability and warmth that shows Negley’s deft and emotional writing throughout the book. The poems show the narrators and possibly Negley herself navigating the ups and downs of life and how you can survive with love and hope.
The book would be best for readers who want to read realistic poems about love, aging, and death. Even readers who don’t like poetry will like the poems in this text. Heed the Heart would also be best for readers who want to read poems that similar poets write hopeful poems from poets like Maya Angelou and mournful elegies about death like poet Sylvia Plath. Negley has written a book that will resonate with readers who want to learn about expressions of different emotions and how to process them. Heed the Heart is a book that will make readers laugh, cry, and think deeply about life. These poems serve as both a mirror and a companion for anyone navigating the complexities of life.