"Tears trickled down her face
as she grits her teeth
to the creaking sounds of the mattress
and his violate groans that distort her mind..."
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Bare by Wes. L. Lotus Trafford Publishing
book review by John E. Roper
Some youthful poets compose doggerel—uninspired lines of meaningless verse that employ trite rhyming words such as "moon" and "June." Others try to imitate past masters in form and subject matter but end up with soulless stanzas that lie dead on the page. A few, however, dig deep into themselves to compose poetry that illuminates the poet as a person, revealing to the reader much of the personality and worldview of the writer. Lotus, a young, Haitian-American, gives her audience an unadorned view of herself in her collection of highly personal poems.
At the core of Lotus' poetry is her spirituality. A devoted Christian, she is committed to her faith and determined to walk worthily before her maker. This does not mean she hides her true self behind a goody-two-shoes mask. Instead, her poems reflect an emerging trend among young Christian writers to be completely candid about their feelings. For example, many of Lotus' offerings focus on love, and while she is determined to stay sexually pure before marriage, she is not afraid to periodically expose her longings for physical intimacy with her future husband in her poems. Nor is she too timid to use an occasional word or phrase that might offend the more fundamentalist members of the church. She is also not one to keep silent about societal issues such as racial discrimination. What ultimately emerges from a reading of Lotus' verse is that she is passionate about her beliefs, her ethnicity, and her femininity. Whether in poetic form or in short sections of prose, Lotus' unique voice shines through, proving that hers is a career to watch.