Eleven Sundry Flowers

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Eleven Sundry Flowers by Frank Mundo is a collection of eleven beautiful love poems to his long-time best friend, and now wife, Nancy. The poems are packed with eloquent and expressive metaphors, descriptive imagery, and powerful verses. Poetry lovers, especially those who like nature and love poems, would enjoy this work.

The book begins with “Pocket Full of Posies,” which states that for eleven days, the writer has promised his “sweet Nancy…buds perfumed-soaked in spring loaded praise.” Mundo, comparing poetry to flower buds, continues this metaphor by saying that he will nurture his words by “toiling in the garden,” and if his “thumb-picked pick fails to stun, then flowery I’ll beg for her pardon.” This technique of comparing love to nature is continued throughout the entire book, and I thought that it really added a lot to the poems. I appreciated how descriptive Mundo was and how creative he got with his metaphors about his love for Nancy.

The book continues by taking the reader through the expression of Mundo’s love. After initially trying to write like famous “masters,” Mundo realizes he must write from his heart, and that he sure does! My favorite poem was “March Madness,” where Nancy has fallen ill due to March’s weather. Mundo offers chicken noodle soup, orange juice, vitamin C, and other remedies to make the love of his life well again. The poem perfectly encapsulates the nurturing side of a relationship, where one wants nothing more than to make the one they love well and happy again. I also really enjoyed “Darling Buds of May.” This poem serves as a reminder that time is fleeting; one day we will grow old and have no time left to enjoy the precious moments that make life worth living. Mundo ends this poem truthfully saying, “Hear me now, underneath the crescent moon: live today for tomorrow dies too soon.”

One of the biggest enhancers of this poetry collection is the illustrations done by Keith Draws. The detail and intricacy of each of these images is phenomenal. The illustrations themselves take up pages, with each illustration correlating with one of the eleven days of Mundo’s writing. With so many parts to each drawing, I really stopped page to page to admire Draws’ work and understand what the images were conveying. Although this definitely supplemented Mundo’s poetry, I did find some of the drawings to be a little distracting from the work itself; I spent more time trying to follow what was happening in the extensive illustrations than appreciating the poetry.


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Author
Star Count 4/5
Format Trade
Page Count 28 pages
Publisher Antrim House
Publish Date 12-Jul-2021
ISBN 9781943826858
Bookshop.org Buy this Book
Issue December 2021
Category Poetry & Short Stories
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