Title: The Yearning Heart
Subtitle: Poems of Contemplation and Stillness
Author: Hilary K. Sinclair
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 978-1-5462-9546-4
Genre: Poetry
Pages: 68
Reviewed by: Beth Adams

Read Book Review

After multiple readings of The Yearning Heart by author and poet Hilary K. Sinclair, I finally had the most lucid interpretation of her work when opening the book during the middle of the night, and realized how the subtitle Poems of Contemplation and Stillness make it a pre-requisite to read this without distraction. What seemed trite by day becomes intensively powerful at night, because readers need to slow down and pause at each stanza.

In this collection of just over a score of poems, Sinclair covers an array of topics with insight gained by life’s events coupled with her sensitivity to see things from “outside” of the moment. For example, In her poem titled “Grenze,” it begins with a photograph of a man staring at a post of “Yellow, red and black / Each post stands in the land” and goes on to symbolize the death and sacrifice of men fighting battles over the turf, dying in trenches, and nations being enslaved. So much of history was perceived from just this benign marker in the land, yet so powerful are the boundaries set by man against each other. In “Galaxies” I reflected on her opening, “The superstructure of the galaxies is modelled in man’s mind / His interwoven consciousness among the stars…” How often I too have thought about the root of consciousness, and she defined it so eloquently as being “interwoven .. among the stars.” In “Butterflies” she scribed about the inevitable ending of summer and morphing of the seasons, yet we learn from the epilog this poem came to her when she dropped off her daughter on her first day of Primary School. It made me remember the stages of my own daughter, winging in beauty, then cocooning and re-emerging with even more intensity. Those moments of reflection to readers is why poetry is such an awesome genre, and why it is so popular.

Often it is said, “Less is more,” and this theme represents the distilled emotions and observations latent in this original collection of poetry. As mentioned, the author’s comments at the end of the book sheds light on how she felt, or what circumstances existed in her life, at the time when composing her works. The entire collection has taken Sinclair over 30 years in the making, and to bring it into such a condensed reveal makes for The Yearning Heart – Poems of Contemplation and Stillness a truly impressive trophy.

Illustrated with beautiful photographs and images, the combination of words and pictures bring the reading experience to a very powerful level, leaving poetry lovers with an indelible memory of many of her thoughts. The Yearning Heart by Hilary K. Sinclair is a remarkable, inspiring compilation of thoughts and poems which will captivate all types of readers as they relate deeply with the simple life messages and heartfelt feelings shared by the author.