Book review: "Poetry for the soul" by Lisa Marie Nicole

At long last, I was able to find the time to read Lisa Marie Nicole's 2nd book Poetry for the Soul.

It is quite a departure from her first book The Christmas Stranger.

That first book is a story woven around Christmas time, of a mysterious stranger whose

outer-worldly visit changes a life.

Poetry for the Soul is a collection, rather than a story. It is a patchwork quilt of memories and reflections from Lisa's own personal lived experiences, dreams, relationships and struggles. It is presented in the kind of pure and clear, uncomplicated embroidery by which she crafts her songs.

Lisa breaks the poems up into different chapters based on topics, but a certain stream-of-consciousness persists, and the reader gets a glimpse into a mind of a functional day dreamer. It is the mind of an artist, and I think many of us have the frustration of not having the talent to lasso those dreams and bend and shape them into something to be shared with others.

When big dreamers become big doers, awe inspiring beauty results and we see this in Michaelangelo's Pieta or Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge over Troubled Water.

Whether the artist is portraying the Blessed Mother who at once, grieves for her Lord, God and Son, or for the silver girl who needs a friend, their gift is the ability to give voice to what we feel. While we look at their sculpture, we feel the pain of the person they portrayed. While we sing their song, our heart soars on the notes they reach, because we can't reach them.

The artist is the historian far more than the mere historical writer or photographer.

An image of the twin towers burning doesn't capture the fire that burned inside us. Lisa's poems were written in the smoldering aftermath, and her voice rings out in song of the incredulity that there is only a gaping hole where the towers once stood.

In Poetry for the Soul, Lisa brings this same tender, clear-eyed crispness to all of her life experience from her love of dogs and winter and her mom to her grieving for the father she lost. Most of all you see it in her desire to see God through the fog of depression and chronic pain and the day-to-day trials and disappointments that checker our lives.

Poetry for the Soul is not the Summa Theologica. Lisa is not trying to break new ground in the understanding of complex and intricate doctrines. Neither is she trying to be the Anne Emmerich or Bridget of Sweeden and give secret knowledge of mystical experiences.

Poetry for the Soul is much more akin to Saint Therese of Lisieux's Story of a Soul in its approach. Simple faith in simple things, simply and artistically portrayed.

Lisa talks of love- for her father, her mother, her husband and her country. Most of all, love of God permeates all she sees and feels and articulates. She starts from the mind and works outward. She writes what she sees, and she feels what she writes.

Though the poems, at first blush, seem random and scattershot, you can still see a progression of thought and purpose.

She starts by writing about the destination in the mind- a powerful metaphor for a formulated vision. She then talks about the world as a better place and imagines what that would look like. Looking to be cleansed of sin and immersed in Him and His creation, she goes on to give a small glimpse of that on a trip down an Arizona highway.

• Vision

• Motion

• Observation

• Realization

I see it in the way the poems are laid out, start to finish and how she brings a song to completion as well. Ultimately, Poetry for the Soul is exactly what the title implies. This book is fuel for the disposition of a soul to receive grace. God looking in, as Lisa says, into the stained-glass windows of our souls.

Please go to lisamarienicole.com and get a copy. Highly recommended.