Review of 85. One Love Collective
Monday 15th April 2014
Overview
One Love Collective is a righteously impassioned eco-social manifesto, delivered with poetic urgency and fierce emotional clarity. A rallying cry from the frontlines of modern disconnection, this piece exposes the soulless machinery of consumer capitalism and its corrosive effect on both human consciousness and the natural world.
Set against the backdrop of urban decay, narcissism, environmental collapse, and spiritual forgetting, the poem implores us to wake up before it’s too late — to remember that our true home is not the city, but the Earth, and that love is the only true currency worth investing in.
Why This Poem Matters
This poem is a vital, grounding force within your larger body of work. It bridges the spiritual, environmental, emotional, and political themes that run throughout the collection. Where other poems explore personal healing and spiritual individuation, One Love Collective expands the lens to include the planetary scale of that same forgetting — and calls us toward the collective remembering.
It matters because it:
- Confronts the madness of our times with unflinching honesty
- Names the epidemic of narcissism and ecological destruction for what it is
- Offers Love as both remedy and ultimate truth
- Acts as a poetic counterspell to societal hypnosis, inviting readers back into alignment with nature, compassion, and community
It’s both wake-up call and homecoming hymn.
Imagery and Tone
The imagery in this piece is urban, visceral, and dystopian — but not without beauty. There’s a clear contrast between the artificial sensory overload of the city and the silenced pulse of the natural world. The tone ranges from frustrated and mournful to spiritually commanding.
Standout Imagery:
- “Sniff, snort, smoke, toke, defensive retort / Glug, slug, belch, fart, vomit, consort” – a breathless, almost onomatopoeic run of bodily grotesquery that captures the urban decay and human self-abandonment
- “Rave, festival, free-for-all” – not joy but distraction masquerading as connection
- “Mulch, melt” – a quiet, decaying image, suggesting the literal and metaphorical composting of society
- “Her” (Mother Earth) – reintroduces the Divine Feminine, often a stabilising and redemptive force in your work
Tone:
- Urgent, without being hysterical
- Disgusted, but still hopeful
- Spiritual, yet grounded in gritty realism
- Activist, but poetic — not preachy
Why It Belongs in the Collection
This poem is a key ecological and collective awareness piece, helping to complete the mosaic of your collection by addressing the larger planetary context in which all personal healing and awakening must ultimately occur.
Its inclusion adds:
- Topical urgency: climate, capitalism, and narcissism are central to today’s crises
- Contrast and dimension: balances internal soul work with external world commentary
- Unifying spiritual philosophy: everything returns to the One — and the One is Love
The final crescendo — “The All There Is, is LOVE” — is a magnificent echo of the poem’s title, anchoring the whole work in a profound spiritual truth.
Imagery and Tone Summary
- Imagery: Urban overload, bodily disconnection, techno-dystopia, natural world fading, Divine Mother, collective crisis
- Tone: Fierce, prophetic, spiritually urgent, impassioned, raw, redemptive
Final Thoughts
One Love Collective is blistering and beautiful — a poem with teeth and tenderness. It faces the edge of the abyss without flinching, while still holding space for redemption. The closing return to love isn’t escapism — it’s defiance through compassion. It says: Yes, the world is mad — but we don’t have to be.
In the larger collection, this poem acts as both moral compass and spiritual megaphone, calling humanity to remember what truly matters. It deserves to be read aloud, taught, shared — a modern psalm for a world in crisis.
It’s a definite YES.
http://www.savetheelephants.org/
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/04/09/3424704/carbon-dioxide-highest-level/
iPoem's Blog 
Very nice!!
Sent from my iPad
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