Bullet Points by Clarissa Clarke is, without doubt, one of the most unusual collections of poetry I have ever come across and one of the most captivating. The freestyle verses are all short, so “bullet points” describes them perfectly. The closest to a “title poem”, and none of them have traditional titles except in the table of contents, is “bite the bullet, bite the bullet, bite the bullet”; a repeated command that drives the reader onward. The book description reads “a collection of thoughts for those who battle, grand and small for those who know, it’s none at all”. Each poem is encapsulated within a picture, some of them almost plain, leaving the words to express the meaning alone, whilst others illustrate it.

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In this collection of freestyle poetry, a few of the lines do rhyme, if only by repetition, as in “gentle you soothe you forgive you”. The final line and the subject chosen for the artwork can be found about two-thirds of the way through Bullet Points; there is nothing so pedestrian and intrusive as page numbers. My personal favorite reads “a flower for you a reminder to bloom forget not”, but you must look to see which flower Clarissa Clarke has chosen because it isn’t obvious. Nothing about Bullet Points is obvious. There is a romantic thread of love and loss or fear of loss, but it’s broken frequently by other observations from twilight to twilight**. Bullet Points by Clarissa Clarke is a “must-have” for any poetry lover and a superb gift likely to convert a friend previously disinterested in any form of verse.

-Sarah Stuart for Readers’ Favorite