Weekly Reader: Stellar by Kevin Hollingsworth; Poetry Book Sparkles With Words Of Love

Weekly Reader: Stellar by Kevin Hollingsworth; Poetry Book Sparkles With Words of Love and Loss

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews



Spoilers: Kevin Hollingsworth's book of poems, Stellar lives up to the name.


It is a wonderful book filled with prose poems that sparkles with love and ache with loss. Hollingsworth's words carry a lyrical beauty that reminds one of the ecstacy of falling in love and the pain when it is gone.


Many of the poems visualize concepts with personification comparing them to the love of a person. "America" describes the country as a woman. Hollingsworth writes " Music wandered through the sky/The mist touched her skin and, it felt so good/Red, white and blue combed her hair so fine/She was magnificent, and she was free/Her name was America, and I was/Proud to walk by her side."


Sometimes Hollingsworth does the opposite and compares lovers to other things like nature. In the poem, "Mirage," the desert optical illusion becomes an extended metaphor for a transitory love affair. "My throat was not quenched/As the sun pummeled it's searing heat/When I woke up, I looked around/There was no lover, and no lady of my dreams;/Just, the sun, the sand, the wind and/The desert's searing heat/Calmly by my side."


Hollingsworth writes unusual simile and metaphor to describe people. In "Blessing in Disguise", the Speaker compares a woman "as pretty as the French language/Her song was like a dream (he) once knew."


The title poem refers to a woman that sparkles with a beauty in which she is unaware. "Stella was beauty that they could not understand/Her beauty was surrounded by smiles that admired her/Elegance commented that she look too good/Attraction realized her magnetism as/She glided up the stairs"..."Sensuality had to make Stella part of the conversation as her/Future was promising/She was more than robust/Her trademark was stellar and so was her beauty."


Some of the best poems are what I call the name poems in which Hollingsworth titles a poem with person's name and the Speaker describes their love life with the title figure, often an unhappy affair. In the poem, "Christina," the Speaker compares meeting the beautiful Christina to waiting in line for something elusive but finding it like two beings dancing to the same music. Christina disappears from the Speaker's life leaving him once again waiting in line but this time not finding a suitable partner with whom to share the music.


Some name poems have a bittersweet context such as "Pamela's Heart." In this poem, the Speaker remembers his lover Pamela's beautiful kind heart and how she was the love of his life. However lines like "Love with no compromise/That was what Pamela was about" refer to Pamela in the past tense suggesting that she is no longer with the Speaker. Since the Speaker speaks so lovingly of Pamela and gives no indication that she left or broke his heart further implies that she died and all the Speaker has to remember her is of her good heart. The name poems individualize each subject and what the Speakers hold onto in their memories of them.


Hollingsworth's poetry captures love and heartache with imagery that fills you with sadness and longing. Hollingsworth is a true stellar poet.