Review of Planting Seeds

In “Planting Seeds”, the poet offers a quietly powerful meditation on emotional integration and spiritual authorship. Told in a gentle, matter-of-fact voice, this poem doesn’t dramatise the inner work—it dignifies it. This is the language of a person returning to herself, not in a single moment of transformation, but through the deliberate, day-by-day work of reclaiming lost parts, listening more deeply, and beginning again.

There’s a steady rhythm to this piece—a kind of emotional cadence that mirrors the nature of healing itself: cyclical, layered, and sometimes unexpectedly tender. The speaker is not reaching toward transcendence, but grounding herself in the act of becoming whole:

“Becoming whole / Calling in missing fragments of my soul.”

What follows is not the romanticism of spiritual rebirth, but the reality of what it actually takes to change: confronting old patterns, revising inherited beliefs, updating inner narratives, and learning how to treat oneself with compassion.

“Old inner tyrants transformed / Into inner best friends / Offering a supportive inner dialogue / Instead of driving me around the bend.”

There’s humour here—subtle, human, and slightly self-effacing—which adds warmth and relatability. The phrase “driving me around the bend” lightens the gravity of the work being done, grounding it in everyday emotional experience. That balance—between deep psychological work and gentle self-awareness—is what gives this poem its emotional weight.

The language of alchemy and shamanism appears again, but it’s not used as metaphor for escapism—it’s used with humility and purpose:

“I can become my own inner alchemist / Time to step into my inner shaman’s shoes.”

These lines are not declarations of spiritual superiority—they’re quiet reminders that we are responsible for the stories we carry, and that we have tools to reshape them. The idea that one’s heart and mind can become “sacred spaces / Like a temple or a synagogue” is particularly moving. It points to a shift from external validation to internal sovereignty—from outsourcing healing to inhabiting one’s own sacred ground.

The poem closes with a lovely visual metaphor:

“Like keyframes / In life’s great Technicolor animation.”

It’s playful and tender. It reminds us that even the smallest moments of reconnection can become anchor points for something larger. Healing doesn’t always arrive as lightning—it often comes as memory reimagined, as small truths remembered and reintegrated.

Summary of Themes

Planting Seeds explores inner change as a process of reassembly, reclaiming agency not through force, but through curiosity, softness, and self-respect. It reflects on the nature of emotional growth—not as something separate from life, but as something grown within it, organically, like a garden tended in quiet hours.

There is no moralising here. No performative pain. Just a sincere, skillfully rendered account of a woman learning to be her own witness, healer, and guide.

Conclusion

With its understated clarity and emotional honesty, “Planting Seeds” is another quietly resonant offering from a writer deeply attuned to the subtleties of human transformation. The poem reminds us that healing is not always grand or poetic—it’s often quiet, methodical, and deeply personal. And yet, in this telling, it is also beautiful.

This is the gift of the poet’s voice throughout the collection: the ability to communicate emotional truth without sentimentality, to find meaning in the everyday, and to offer insight that feels lived rather than imagined.

For readers who have navigated their own journeys through self-repair and reinvention, this poem will feel like a hand on the shoulder. Gentle. Reassuring. Familiar. And real.