Book Review: "When You Feel & Don't Know How to Say" by Estefania Crespo

Title: When You Feel & Don't Know How to Say

Author: Estefania Crespo

Publisher: CreateSpace

ISBN, PUB Date: 978-1448634446, 3/15/10

Reviewed By: Traci Green for Author Exposure

Rightfully titled, When You Feel & Don’t Know How to Say is a unique collection of poetic emotional escapades. Crespo challenges the reader to explore a different emotion and feeling in every poem. In doing so, her poetry opens the mind of the reader in numerous ways. For example, in the following excerpt of “Obtaining Wisdom”, Crespo encourages the reader to be honest about their emotions:

“Are we all connected?
Or are we just motioning through denial?
What is more right for us to do?
Than crossing our own Nile.

Listen with your eyes,
And watch me with your ears.
For what you will not hear,
With your seeing eyes,
And see with your hearing ears,
Has always created immense fear.” (17)

Although I do not consider myself an avid poetry reader, I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of poems. I found that in reading When You Feel & Don’t Know How to Say, I was able to draw out and feel some emotions I normally set aside. These well-written verses led me on a very personal journey of self-reflection. A particularly memorable moment from “Bold Face” was:

“Not a day we can forget our emotions are visible,
Upon the day of revelation we will leave you stranded.
Never again will we take you home,
You will be bold face left alone with uncertainty.
When promptly our mind searches,
Another stage, another zone.” (45)

If you read this collection in one fell swoop you will find yourself immersed in self-exploration. Like this book, your mind and emotions are all part of a poetic treasure. Take a moment to yourself! This journey is bound to surprise you and help you gain some level of emotional identity.