Best Poems About Depression And Pain Reviewed By BookViral

A Review Of Swimming Not Drowning By Mari-Carmen Marin

Poems about depression and pain

Listen To The Audio Review

Recommend  for the coveted BookViral Crimson Quill. To make your recommendation simply click on the award badge below..…. 

  • ASIN: ‎ B097NNFL11
  • Publisher: ‎ Legacy Book Press LLC (20 Jun. 2021)
  • Language: ‎ English
  • Print length: ‎ 101 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN: ‎ 1734798688
  • Genre: Poems About Depression And Pain

 

The BookViral Review: Tremendously powerful narrative poems on the subject of Depression and Pain. Rarely have I encountered poetry as ‘present’ as that of Mari-Carmen Marin’s ‘Swimming, not Drowning’. 

Through exploration of both her own and other’s experiences, Marin captures how depression is indiscriminate and indifferent to whether your life is perfect or imperfect, and furthermore does not apologise to whoever it haunts.

With her candid and open verse, she tackles big issues surrounding mental health, not shying away from obviously traumatic areas of her life. However, neither does she create an air of self-pity or self-indulgence, but rather an honest representation and immediacy of emotion, forcing the reader to live each word with her, thus creating a bridge between her own experiences and another’s.

Nevertheless, in the poem entitled ‘Weird’, readers find themselves feeling desperately sorry for the narrator, in part due to this devastatingly compelling piece describing the anguish of difference in youth, and the message that to others difference means flawed. Conversely, in ‘Weird part 2’, Marin implicitly chastises our assumptions, as she gently changes our perspective by reframing the word, with reference to the most wonderful, beautiful, and unique people in history who have been regarded as weird.

Excellent command of diction and syntax makes every word count, distilling her words into a heady mix of powerful imagery and metaphor, but tempered with a delicate delivery. With her words sometimes subtle, and at other times deafening, Marin cannot fail to elicit a strong emotional reaction in the reader.

Marin has also carefully considered and expertly applied visual representation in her poetry, enhancing meaning, such as with ‘In need of a magic pill’ where the character’s perception of life is falling away as surely as the words, which visually threaten to slip from the page. Whilst lengthier storytelling verse is interspersed with shorter poignant lyrical reflections, which leave room for personal meditation.


Paired with stunning artwork, Swimming Not Drowning creates an outstanding book and is unreservedly recommended. If you struggle or have ever struggled with the dark moments of depression, or indeed seek to gain an understanding of another’s struggles, then this book is for you.

Recommended Book Reviews
In The BookViral Spotlight

Deep Love Poems

DEEP LOVE POEMS Reviews

You deserve to be loved and Thief Of Hearts is your story told countless times over. A poetry collection for those who have loved, lost and dared to love again. A timeless poetry collection for those romantic souls who believe in unconditional love but have experienced the highs, lows and darker places love takes us.

Read More »
New Releases In Satire Fiction

New Releases In Satire Fiction

A superbly written sitcom-style foray into the world of teaching teens, ‘Peter Sutcliffe’s Waiting in the Corridor’ is a hilarious account of term six at Southgreen Academy, a secondary in the South-East of England.

Read More »

Community & Culture Biographies

Love doesn’t discriminate and by sharing his relationship experiences Gauthier also reflects on the pain of breakups and the lingering impact they have on our emotional well-being and sometimes our ability to trust the sincerity of others.

Read More »

Author Publishing Tips & Recommended Book Reviews

How the Pandemic Has Influenced Reading & Literary Trends1
Author Blogs
Editorial Team

How the Pandemic Has Influenced Reading & Literary Trends

The Covid-19 pandemic has influenced our consumption of media in a variety of ways. From every new Netflix original being crowned its ‘best ever’, to cinema releases being consistently pushed back, stay at home orders have resulted in us engaging with media differently.

Read More »
Social commentary in literature
Author Blogs
Editorial Team

Social Commentary In Literature

Never before has the voice of social commentary in literature sung higher. Freedom of speech has brought with it a cacophony of loudly spoken, written and sometimes harshly promoted opinion and judgement.

Read More »
Author Blogs
Editorial Team

The Essentials Of Author Branding

With so many titles in any given genre is more important than ever that authors establish a significant and differentiated presence in a genre that attracts and retains loyal readers.

Read More »

Book Reviews That Readers Trust.

From humble beginnings in 2002 as a book review club BookViral has grown to become the first choice in book reviews for authors around the world and one of the biggest book review sites on the web. BookViral reaches millions of potential readers through best practice SEO and a trusted social media presence ensuring readers get unbiased, critical recommendations they can trust. 

BookViral also offers a full suite of author services, including, book editing services for unpublished and self-published authors, website design and bespoke SEO that help authors get discovered by more potential readers as well as industry influencers, such as publishers, agents and film executives. 

© Copyright 2019 BookViral Reviews. All Rights Reserved.