Review: Oceans of Ink by Sheldon Sinnamon (available here and here and here, elsewhere)
This review is a year in the making, not that it has taken me a year to read Sheldon Sinnamon's collection. There have been many barriers and boundaries that cropped up, life's great effect on plans kicked into affect, though in the back of my mind I kept coming back to wanting to complete my notes and review.
Sometime Autumn, 2016, I was approached by Sheldon Sinnamon and asked whether I'd be interested in reviewing this collection. This would be my first proper review, not me writing about something I had read, someone asking me to review their work. I was rather chuffed to be asked. The plan had been to read through the collection during a trip to Belgium, make notes then type these up. It would all be done by December...
Oceans of Ink is a very enjoyable read. As another review noted, the poems are presented in five parts, with each part taking a theme. There's hooks in the writing, there's so much care and detail in the words. There are so many good lines and turns of phrase, I had trouble trouble picking one or two from my notes, so randomly, from Man With No Title:
So now, I have all these memories I need to repress.
My life became a disconcerting mess.
The poems had a certain familiarity to them, while the come from Sheldon's perspective they had a way of conveying the themes and ideas. Boundaries and barriers were especially strong for me, Sheldon's personal perspective presented perfectly in poems.
As I said, this review is a year, though I've read through this collection a couple of times. It's really enjoyable, approachable, and has a way of rattling around ones thoughts long after putting it down.
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