I want to thank my beloved poet and author, Dawn Pisturino, for her review of Haiku and Tanka: Lull, Harmony, and Power in Japanese art, a poetry-and-art album co-authored by Japanese painter Hikari and me.
Dawn has posted numerous reviews on her blog, spreading love and bringing people together.
Poetry Book Review: “Haiku and Tanka: Lull, Harmony and Power in Japanese Art” by Hikari and Gabriela Marie Milton
by Dawn Pisturino on March 11, 2026
(Graphic created on Canva by Dawn Pisturino)
Haiku and Tanka: Lull, Harmony and Power in Japanese Art by Hikari and Gabriela Marie Milton (2025). Available on Amazon.
My Review
This book is so exquisitely beautiful! Every page has been carefully crafted to deliver an elevated experience. Hikari’s colorful artwork transports the viewer deep into the heart of Japanese culture. Masterfully composed poetry stuns the reader with its divine perfection. This literary masterpiece deserves all the accolades it has received.
If you’re looking for peace and serenity in a turbulent world, you will find it in this book. I give it 5 stars plus!
Learn more about the publisher, Literary Revelations, which has earned international recognition for its aesthetic melding of Western and Eastern cultures.
Gabriela Marie Milton, a Pushcart nominee, can be found on her blog, Short Prose.
Hikari is an internationally acclaimed Japanese artist who grew up in France. Her deep understanding of Western and Eastern cultures has markedly influenced her creative efforts. She can be found on Instagram.
Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings in Independent Book Review
“Passions is a collection for the contemplative reader, those who appreciate symbolic language, mythic references, and emotional depth. Gabriela Marie Milton has crafted a poetic world where spiritual longing meets sensual reality, and where even the quietest images pulse with significance. This book is a rewarding experience for lovers of lyrical, layered, and emotionally intelligent poetry.”
“With lush language and lavish imagery, Gabriela M. evokes a fantastic world ripe with emotion.” Christina Schwarz, the author of the New York Times Bestseller “Drowning Ruth.”
Below is the opening poem from one of my #1 Amazon bestsellers, Passions: Love Poems and Other Writing, and a review by Fabian Bats that, in the beginning, refers to The Miracle of You. Fabian got it!
The Miracle of You
the moon’s right-hand pours soul into my flesh pigeons’ wings bring scents of lilac blooms the air gets drunk with poetry statuary women of the water flaunt their hair
within the loneliness of you my heart rotates five equinoxes on a wooden spindle your eyes pour flesh into my soul my body germinates the sounds of growing leaves I wash my hands into the waters of Guadalquivir in the scented night of those who never sleep I say I love you and in one single breath our wedding is transformed in an enraptured death
[Following is a volunteer review of “Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings” by Gabriela Marie Milton.]
4 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings by Gabriela Marie Milton is a book of 126 poems; 84 love poems, 6 Italian, and 36 others. In the foreword, the author was praised for her ability to pour out passion, from within her creative mind, into her poetry, and this raised my expectations for deep and insightful poems significantly. The author makes good use of the acknowledgments section, by communicating with the reader, which I liked. There is also a responsive table of contents at the start of the book that allows the reader to resume reading with ease.
As the title indicates, love is an overriding theme in this collection of poems, and the book is opened with one of such. The first poem is my favorite in the book; it took a few re-reads to grasp, but when I did, I instantly thought to myself “Genius!”.
After my first read, I had no clue what I had just read, “what is the link between the title and the poem?”, I thought, racking my head and moving on to the next poem, hoping for less murky waters to swim in -at the start of the book, it is humorous, I know. However, when I came back to read it again, and started seeing links, I felt butterflies, I marveled at the beauty of the words chosen and how a particular figure of speech was used here or there, and when the stars aligned in my mind, I saw clearly that the author was referring to the night of a honeymoon (it could mean a host of other things to other readers, simply because poetry is art). From this point onward, it was difficult to put the book down.
Geographical locations are referred to in metaphors and other figures of speech. Landmarks in Spain are mentioned several times in the book, and Spanish history is also referenced. A few other landmarks are also referenced; hence prior knowledge of Geography would make the poems all the more enjoyable.
The Italian translations section also has the English text placed by the side. The poems in Italian were very similar to the poems in the previous chapters, that were centered on love, however, one of the best poems in the book, in my opinion, was in that section, “Languor of love/Languore”. The final section in the book, “Prose poems and flash fiction”, had more understandable content, and two of my favorites from it were “Art” and “Thoughts”. They were written simply and beautifully.
I liked the wordplay very much, the figurative expressions were so well fused, that a wandering mind would be unable to grasp. This book is an advanced work of poetry, with complex rhyming schemes that change per chapter. It must be read with maximum concentration. This is a book of poems so I would recommend this book to those who like poetry, especially the romantic genre, and have at least beginner-level experience in poetry (like myself), also those who want to delve into poetry for the first time, can give it an attempt at their own risk.
The book has no profane language and mild sensual content, which could easily grow within one’s mind whilst reading. I rate this book 4 out of 4 stars, for being professionally edited, conveying a series of beautiful messages powerfully, and being a one of a kind book in its genre.
Thank you for reading and enjoy the rest of your day!
My books (Only English) #1 Amazon bestseller, Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings (Vita Brevis) #1 Amazon Bestseller, Women: Splendor and Sorrow (Vita Brevis)
Thank you to all my followers who reviewed my books. Please read other reviews here:
Christina Schwarz, the author of the New York Times Bestseller “Drowning Ruth.”
“With lush language and lavish imagery, Gabriela Marie Milton. evokes a fantastic world ripe with emotion.” Christina Schwartz
Edited Collections: #1 Amazon Bestseller, Hidden in Childhood (Literary Revelations) #1 Amazon bestseller,Petals of Haiku (Literary Revelations) #1 Amazon Bestseller, Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women (EIF)
frontiers of my being the hour of sunsets has come with bare hands I drown you in the coldest seas red lilies burn you in the hidden valley predatory birds delight in carnal straps I run barefoot through streets of no return I knock on doors a piece of bread for my entire heart
oh, it’s midnight I step into the land of fantasies that are not mine I play with dreams like children play with kites fires taller than the sky burst from my pregnant heart nocturnal marigolds crawl on my skin like ants I interrupt the voice of number Pi from the clouds I rain on you, my love, the silence of the prophets without tongues
was that a ray of light? skyscrapers yawn destinies melt in the taste of coffee and mistrust coughs of cars the day confines me to the sick banality of its own land my hands, aquatic pillars of forgotten fantasies wait like thieves on corners of the streets for yet another night
And here is a review of Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings that I think I’ve never seen before, and I do not know the reviewer personally.
[Following is a volunteer review of “Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings” by Gabriela Marie Milton.]
4 out of 4 stars
Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings, by Gabriela Marie Milton, is a beautiful book that talks mainly of love and its infinite ways of touching each one of us. It also depicts the true depth of human relationships and emotions, how passion can be malleable, intense, and sometimes difficult to understand completely. What I think is one of the greatest achievements of this book is the diversity it has when it comes to writing: love poems, prose poems, flash fictions, and poems translated in Italian.
The poems are brief, carrying such perceptive and sensorial imagery that they give off the impression of being constantly and infinitely expanding themselves to the universe. They talk about love and how wonderful it is, but also about the disagreements and complexities that come with it. Each poem unfolds different scenery with its very own landscape and emotions. It offers a full repertoire of sensations to explore with all the human senses. The reader will be able to smell, touch, see, taste, and hear everything that the poem narrates, transforming the reading into a unique experience. “Those roses which die in the winter/played the piano last night/a whirlpool of notes and of poems/inscribed on a wall painted in blue” (p.26) Reading these lines, it feels as if you were immersed on them, surrounded by those roses and the whirlpool of notes and poems. Closer to the end of the book you have the Prose Poems and Flash Fiction. These are short stories written in poetic prose, which is a hybrid genre of writing that mixes the attributes and structures of both prose and poetry, meaning you can find short stories divided into brief paragraphs or separated into lines on the page, which is the process known as lineation, used when writing poetry. The stories narrated in these sections address issues like the strength of character, loneliness, obsession, love, family, and every little thing that comes with human relationships. It is exceptionally and beautifully written and it completely captivates the reader and makes him feel the same way the poet does.
The poems and the flash fiction are highly aesthetic, sometimes even rhythmical, and its unique quality is the ambiguity that they offer. It is poetry that suggests multiple interpretations of the words that it uses, and by doing this, it evokes a lot of emotive responses from the reader. Apart from the main topic that the poems address, which is love, they also have abundant cultural references. For example, when Astraea is named, which is a goddess from Greek mythology, or the Guadalquivir which is a Spanish river, or even García Lorca, a famous poet. The writer of this book uses symbolism, alliteration, and other figures of speech such as metaphor, metonymy or simile brilliantly and intellectually. She creates a complex yet excellent layering of meanings, forming connections between the verses that were not previously perceived, and it also establishes a resonance or even similarity between images that may seem disparate when you first read them. It is a wonderful book to read if you are interested in a kind of poetry with universal meaning and value.
I recommend this book to poetry lovers who are looking for a kind of poetry that mixes all kinds of different elements, creating a new way of perceiving love. In this book, love can be found everywhere: on the trees or the river, in the soul or inner self, in the scary darkness, in every city of the world. The poems that this book offers are wonderful because they can show the complexity of love and its many branches. I wouldn’t recommend this book to someone who has just started reading poetry because he may find it hard to discover the underlying connections between the verses or understand the very complex and advanced lexicon this poetry has.
I rate the book 4 out of 4 stars because, on the one hand, it is evident that it was professionally edited, with no spelling mistakes whatsoever or errors in the typing. On the other hand, the one I consider the most important aspect of the book, is that it represents the essence of poetry with its characteristic sensitiveness and diverse, heartfelt meanings. Gabriela Marie Milton proves to be an impressive, very intelligent, sensitive, and perceptive writer and without her, this book wouldn’t be what it is now: a beautiful, creative and unique book.
Thank you for reading and enjoy the rest of your day!
My books (Only English) #1 Amazon bestseller, Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings (Vita Brevis) #1 Amazon Bestseller, Women: Splendor and Sorrow (Vita Brevis)
Thank you to all my followers who reviewed my books. Please read other reviews here:
Edited Collections: #1 Amazon Bestseller, Hidden in Childhood (Literary Revelations) #1 Amazon bestseller,Petals of Haiku (Literary Revelations) #1 Amazon Bestseller, Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women (EIF)
40 POEMS AT 40 by Ingrid Wilson – reviewed by Gabriela Marie Milton
40 POEMS AT 40 by Ingrid Wilson is the manifesto of an extremely intelligent, and talented, woman unafraid to explore her past and her inner and outer worlds. Ingrid’s poetry soars to the sky when the seasons change. It dwells in the most secret corners of the soul when dark moments knock on the door.
Ingrid has written 40 beautiful poems. 40 beautiful poems in which one comes face to face with yearnings to change the world, biographical notes, questions about the birth of the universe, pain, and love. Ingrid’s poems weave splendidly the ontological and the epistemological plans to create art. What, and how, come together in an unbelievable journey into the life of a woman in which children go to school and birthdays need to be celebrated.
Oh, and how the landscape plays a role in her beautiful poetry. Italy, England, Spain are not only used for decorative purposes. In Ingrid’s poetry they become intricate parts of the author’s soul.
The space and the time are perceived through intimate prisms. There is North and South, and there is the sea, with its majesty. There is a certain November sky with its colors. There are dancing ice queens and solstices of the heart. There are striking lines like: “I am the song unsung/the life unlived.”
One can almost hear the opening villanelle with her up and down tonalities. It sounds like the song of a nightingale.
The book will be released next month when Ingrid turns 40. Here are a thousand cheers for this stunning volume of poetry and for its author – a woman who knows how to ask questions about the real meaning of life. A woman who does not mince words and does not submit to stereotypes.
Read 40 POEMS AT 40. It’s a fabulous book. You will not be disappointed.
Publication date: February 11, 2022. The book will be available for pre-order before the publication date. You can find Ingrid’s work here.
Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose in Manhattan Book Review
In Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: Love Poems and Poetic Prose, Gabriela Milton, presents an assorted collection that’s intended to invigorate the soul and speak to the depths of human understanding. She delineates her views on feminism, misogyny, passion, hate, spirituality, winning, and losing; while the most salient topic is love…
Milton’s poetic artistry is bold and beautiful, deep and confounding. It’s laced with gorgeous symbolism and imagery. For example, in “Love Numbers”, she writes, “We laid in the grass, shadows of poppies playing on our faces with the same rhythmicity of the waves on tranquil days.” In “Who Am I”, she notes, “I delight in the waves like a gazelle in the grasslands” and later states, “My mind spreads its wings.” Due to her gift in this area, college literature professors may find her work worthy of analysis and use. It is rich with an assortment of literary greats: personification; simile; and metaphor, just to name a few…
Overall, this collection is noteworthy in its uniqueness and eloquence. Many will likely savor the journey it invites them to travel and will gain insight into the powerful impact of poetry and prose on its connoisseurs.
Holding Your Hand – poem included in Woman: Splendor and Sorrow
I walk through the future holding your hand Barefoot I pray to a God whose name I don’t know The rain washes our hearts engraved in the wood The child is the flower of tears and of sweet blood It’s not love that we want It’s the resurrection of dead The breaths that the sea kills with her looks Your hands and the sin we will never commit The room that we rented is empty and cold You know that I came You feel that I left I hear your voice Black coffee waits for the sunrise of us And the future runs in the past
You can get my book Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: | Love Poems and Poetic Prose on Amazon
Updates
Thank you again to those who enter the poetry contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow. I hope to announce the winners at the end of October.
Help our literary community strive. Do not forget to read, like, and submit to MasticadoresUSA.
Gabriela Marie Milton/ The Pacific Ocean, August 27, 2021
A piece from my collection Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings
Profuse desires
rolling like waves on white marble sands roaring like tigers looking for prey howling like winds in gray towns of ghosts resting on sofas like courtesans praying like nuns married to Christ tormenting my dreams your raspy deep voice dying for love
Thank you to Diana for her beautiful review of my new poetry collection Woman: Splendor and Sorrow
My deepest thanks to Diana, a wonderful author, and a great supporter of our WP community, for her beautiful review of Woman: Splendor and Sorrow. The book is available on Amazon here.
Here is a snippet from Diana’s Amazon review.
“Her free form poems are rich with imagery and emotion, gently loving, full of longing and loss, and sometimes shining with personal strength. In every way, this collection captures the diversity of experience that comes with being a woman…
A highly recommended collection for readers of poetry who enjoy flowing imagery, beautiful words, and a deep dive into the soul of womanhood.”
Please visit Diana’s site here. Her books are gorgeous. You will enjoy reading any of them.
There is also a wonderful review of my collection posted by KichiRsa on Amazon too. I do not know who she is but I am deeply grateful to her for reading my collection and writing a review.
An excerpt from her review:
“Woman: Splendor and Sorrow: Love Poems and Poetic Prose by Gabriela Marie Milton is a book of the divine, platonic, sometimes erotic, but often intense and thought-provoking poems. The language is fresh and delightful and reminds the famous poets’ classic works at the beginning of the XX century. At the same time, it is very modern, too. Rendered with richness and beauty, experiences of true love, sadness, sorrow, and grief we all felt at some point or another. You’ll find everything there: from madness to deep ache, from romantic dreams to constantly shifting relationships. In one word, her poems are magic.”
Thank you KichiRsa!
Several Updates
Please visit MasticadoresUSA. Support our community. There are several new and wonderful poems up. Do not forget to like, follow, and submit.
I post poetry on Twitter several days a week. I retweet other poets too. Please follow me on Twitter here @shortprose1
Thank you to everyone who summitted pieces to the Poetry Contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrows. As a reminder those are the guidelines for submission:
The poetry contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow is now open. This contest honors the literary community that has supported me in my writing journey, and celebrates my becoming a #1 Amazon best-selling author.
To participate, you should write one poem inspired by a piece from my #1 Amazon best-selling poetry collection Woman: Splendor and Sorrowand list the name of the piece that inspired your submission. A number of poems from Woman: Splendor and Sorrowcan be found on this blog.
The deadline for submission is September 20, 2021. Please submit your work before September 20 at shortprose12@gmail.com.
Guidelines for submission:
Label your submission Poetry Contest Woman: Splendor and Sorrow.
Do not submit more than one poem.
Do not forget to include: the poem from Woman: Splendor and Sorrow that inspired you, your name or pen name, and the email address where you can be contacted.
Please submit your poem in the body of the email. No attachments or links will be open.
Prizes:
First Place: $300 Second Place: $150 Third Place: $75
Funding for the prizes comes from my royalties.
If you do not have a PayPal account, please open one.
All winners will be featured on my blog. So will those who finish in the following places: 4, 5 and 6.
It is my hope that the winners will use part of their prizes to buy two or three books of their favorite fellow poets or novelists in order to help our literary community strive. If you do so, please let us know what you bought.
How the selection will be made?
The selection method is similar to that of a double-blind peer review: the reviewer doesn’t know the identity of the author, and vice-versa.
To achieve that I will do the following:
Create a master document with all submissions. Remove the name of the authors and replace them with numbers.
Create a second document with the name of the authors and their assigned numbers.
I will not participate in the process of determining the winners. Winners will be determined by two of your peers.
However, I will disclose a piece of information and deviate a bit from the fully double-blind process: the editor of Vita Brevis Poetry Magazine, Brian Geiger, will be one of the reviewers.
The winners will be announced in mid-October. I will update you periodically.
Thank you to everyone who already submitted.
To the future winners: please remember to spread love in our community and buy some books written by your WP favorite authors.
green, you smell with your tongue your thoughts pollinate mine your fingers endanger the sailors a water which opens its lips and drinks them ah, hour of man when did you become the hour of horrors? a book cover reads: Dictionary of Superstitions I see the girl who tears out the heart of the pigeon white feathers and blood spasm under the moon the man she loves will marry her in the street of the tall Cyprus trees and small mandarins we meet you give me a pigeon blood ruby superstition, I think of dying dying without you knowing me I touch with my cheeks the walls that you touched adrenalized you think of me your skin calls my name
love dark love with pins in his heart the pigeon still flies
Below please find the review of my poetry collection, Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings, in San Francisco Book Review.
“The series transports us on a journey of love as much as it delivers us a thematically diverse set of emotions. This is a superb collection.”
Bobbie Peyton
Please read the entire review here.
in this pink summer of Jaipur dressed in silk and in monsoonal dances choked by smoke forgotten by lovers the nuances in which you speak my name sound hollow
and the little girl who has only a grain of rice
continue reading here
Thank you again to everyone who bought my book, Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings, available on Amazon here. The book has been a bestseller under Poetry About Love for quite a while including yesterday and the day before yesterday.
The following is another review, one among many, done on an online book club by another reviewer whom I do not know.
Excerpt:
“This is a mesmerizing collections of poems, ranging from love poems and writings in form of prose poems. This book brings back old memories, it re-ignites the long gone fire of love within the reader. It has an amazing effect on the reader as one reads the poems, one by one….With an excellent lovely language and lavish imagination, Gabriela ignites a fantastic mind full of emotions….I rate this book 4 out 4 stars. It makes me want to write poems. It is an inspiration, an entertainment and a lively way of educating and reigniting your fire of love. I quote a line in one of the poems,” we desperately want to love, to possess each other, caught in a perpetual rush to justify our existence.” It really makes sense and will make sense till the end of time...”
Inspiring reviewers, people who I do not know, and people who I know, is an honor.
