“Unbroken”

By Bob MacKenzie

60 pages

ISBN: 978-81-8253-947-1

Cyberwit

Copyright 2022

Review by LB Sedlacek

Bob MacKenzie’s work is nothing short of original.  This new collection offers up six poems, total. 

The first poem is called “outliers” and it is a prose poem that tells the story of a childhood friend, Ricky.  Any poet that can cleverly tell a story through a poem is a talented one. 

“perdition” is a mystical mob tale poem.  He takes a family’s history and tells their tale through verses. 

“After the Dark” delves into legends and of course examines darkness.  MacKenzie skillfully brings this story to life, line by line.

The next poem is almost classical in its presentation.  It’s called “There’s Something about Persephone.”  MacKenzie dives into mythology with this one.

“Susan” is a romantic memory type poem.  It really pulls at the heartstrings and has so much soul and emotion to it.  It is a haunting poem.

The last poem to close out this collection is “snapshots from the attic.”  He takes this poem and turns it into what we all imagine it would be like to go through someone’s attic.  In this poem it is photographs turned into visuals.

Some samples from his poems:

From the poem “outliers”:  “Ricky wanted to be a rock and roll hero / I just longed to fit in if I could / Ricky dressed in the rock and roll style / long blond hair teased into a ducktail / clothes the essence of Gene Vincent cool / standing in the shadows I stood out / always the outsider looking in / the new kid who never felt welcome”

From the poem “perdition”:  “silhouette of fedora and trenchcoat / a man walks away toward the distant / afterglow separating dusk from dark”

From the poem “There’s Something about Persephone”:  “It was she who came to me in my dreams:  / Persephone from that dark underworld / where for thirty years I had hidden her, / thought her dead and gone and all memory / taken with her into some deep black hole / far beneath the palace, where I was safe, / where Spring was safe from forgotten terror.”

MacKenzie is adept at creating his own world within his poems.  There’s a power to his verse.  His lines really stick in your mind.  His poems, though, are welcoming and the moments in them really matter.

MacKenzie is the author of 9 other poetry collections as well as 9 fiction books.  Besides his books, his works are also widely published.

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~LB Sedlacek’s latest poetry book is “Ghost Policy.”  She is also the author of the poetry collections “I’m No ROBOT,” “Simultaneous Submissions,” “Swim,” “Words and Bones,” and “The Poet Next Door.”  Her non-fiction books include “The Poet Protection Plan,” “The Traveling Postcard,” and “Electric Melt.”  Her short story collection is entitled “Four Thieves of Vinegar & Other Short Stories.”  www.lbsedlacek.com