Title: The Game of Life
Author: Vanessa Lamar Barton
Publisher: Author’s Tranquility Press
ISBN: 978-1-971095-63-9
Pages: 76
Genre: Poetry
Reviewer: Arthur Thares

Read Book Review

The Game of Life is a wonderful collection of poems that stretch across a variety of genres, including parenting, faith, and gratitude. This collection about life isn’t gathered in chapters of poems with similar themes, but rather flows from one topic to the next, much like life itself. Not only does it lend to the overall theme of the collection, but it prevents important verses from being lost in the monotony of one love poem after another. Rest assured, this is not another sappy collection of repeated themes; this collection is full of real and raw emotion that many will relate to.

Some of the poems in The Game of Life are universally relatable like “God’s Gift to You,” about a parent’s love for their child and not wanting to leave the earth without knowing your job as a parent is done. Others are more intimate pictures of Barton’s life that aren’t meant for everyone to understand, like “I, The Black Woman”. Relatable poems like “Ode, To a Job” get mixed in with more thought-provoking prose like “The Big Picture.” There is truly a verse for everyone in this collection at any stage of their life.

One of the greatest aspects of poetry is the freedom poets get to play with words and structure. Barton chooses a traditional path with sprinkles of AB and a dash of ABAB rhyming schemes. While some poets want to be known only for their artistry, it is clear that Vanessa Lamar Barton wants to be heard. She eschews gaudy artistry, so her words can be both understood and absorbed, which leaves little room for pageantry. One of her greatest strengths is speaking from a position of experience without sounding like she is preaching to her audience, which makes poems about faith, family, and race easier to digest for a general audience.

This is a collection of lived experiences, which makes the title so perfect. Vanessa Lamar Barton has played the Game of Life, and if these pages are any indication, she is winning. All too often, books of poems are self-serving, pedantic, and too focused on a single subject. It is refreshing to find a collection of poems that aren’t only meant to entertain but gently guide the reader toward positive thinking. At less than 100 pages, this is a quick read, but that just makes it easier to re-read the entire collection or quickly find your favorites when you’d like to read them again. If you aren’t a fan of poetry, this collection may still pique your interest as most of these poems are more like one-page stories than your traditional poetic fare.  The Game of Life reminds readers that even the most difficult chapters can contain lessons, growth, and reasons to continue believing in tomorrow.