The Sea Refuses No River by Bethany Rivers - Blog Tour Review

Life Of A Nerdish Mum is honoured today to be kicking off the blog tour for The Sea Refuses No River by Bethany Rivers.

The Sea Refuses No River

The journey of grief is a strange one

and one not often talked about in our everyday reality of this society,

but I know what it's like to dive deep,

down to the bottom of the wreck,

feel the ribs of the wreck,

after losing a parent so young in life 

In this collection, the sea refuses no river, there is an acceptance of the pain and an acceptance of the healing moments; the healing journeys. To quote Adrienne Rich: I came to explore the wreck', and in this collection, Bethany discovers how, 'The words are purposes. The words are maps.'

My Review

I seem to be really drawn to poetry at the minute, so when the opportunity to read The Sea Refuses No River, a collection of poems about grief I jumped at the chance.

I don't mention covers as often as I probably should, but the cool simplicity of this book cover really matches the feel and tone of the poems and I think is quite beautiful. The picture doesn't quite do it the justice it deserves, it's even more striking in real life.

I dove in and out of The Sea Refuses No River, I feel the topic and the poems are heavy and so lend themselves to being read in instalments rather than reading all in one sitting. Each time I picked the book up, I read the next poem, though sometimes I admit to being pulled into the mood of the words and reading more than the one that I had planned to read.

I was trying to chose just one favourite out of the collection, but as it's my review and I can do what I want, I'm choosing two. The first is - Tea And Buttered Toast is really well constructed, it caught my attention from the title alone and kept me right to the end. The second is - Seven Full Stops, it really made me think about the different way people I know both read and speak and I really enjoyed the rhythm.

A special mention has to be made of Every Garden Is A Gift as it is beautiful and haunting and I completely felt the emotion behind it.

Overall a solid and compelling collection of poems. I will definitely be looking out for more of Bethany Rivers work.

I gave The Sea Refuses No River four stars.

About The Author

Bethany Rivers (M.A. in Creative Writing from Cardiff University) is a poet and author based in Shrewsbury, who has taught creative writing for over eleven years and mentored and coached many writers from the start of their writing project through to publication.

Don't Forget To Check Out The Rest Of The Tour