"It's Autumn Time and Other Poems"

"It's Autumn and Other Poems"
Written by Nazia Mustafa
Review written by Diana Iozzia



I feel very saddened to write such a negative review about a person's poetry, because poetry is very personal and often speaks of someone's experience. However, I was thoroughly disappointed when I read "It's Autumn Time and Other Poems". At first glance, I believe this book was not edited, to capture the authentic words and voice of the author. Unfortunately, it comes off as strangely difficult to read and understand. Many sentences do not make sense. Many sentences are repeated but have different endings just by one word. Nazia's poetry is very jumbled and childlike, which is not poetry I would like to read. It's not similar to the more frantic styles of poetry by E.E. Cummings. No, this poetry is a very confusing mess of words and ideas. Some poems are just plain nonsensical. Is this a poor translation error, or just a lack of necessary editing?

The cover, the title page, and the poem are all written differently. The title page inside and another page inside read "It's Autumn Time and Other Poems", but the book cover doesn't mention "Time". Also, the poem that the book is about is just called "It's Autumns Time".

I usually mention my favorite poems, or even just poems that I like, but I could not find a single poem I enjoyed reading. The author's little "About the Author" sounds like a job interview, with her mentioning "Since young age, I love to read books. People tell me often that I am very friendly and have a lovely smile. They also tell me I am very good with young children; my interpersonal and social skills are excellent. I seem to bond quickly, therefore I should be a teacher".

Different snippets of poems I had to point out for the strange sentence and grammar structure are:
"It's time for autumn to come back. It's time for a welcome back. It's time for the trees and the leaves to come back... It's time for autumn to go back. It's time for a goodbye. It's time for the trees and leaves to die back. And then to never come back".

Many of the poems are similar to read. Common idioms and phrases are told in broken English. Please understand that I do not mind a book with jargon or colloquial dialect, but grammatically incorrect English is too hard to ignore.

"There shouldn't be clouds covering us. However. Let he green branches be tanning us."
"I seek a glance at the sun. However. The sun pesters me from the light."

The poem that threw me most was "The Special Girl". This poem is about a pretty girl that the narrator of the poem envies. There's a vague reference to Cinderella. "Take control, making me sweat man run that show, It's us, prince, prince, prince, you just can't say no, hey girl I think we got a problem, Some girls are freaky, some are sweet". There's also a line about girls you meet at parties and on the streets. "Lookin' like a disabled turkey and always stalking me".

I'm not quite sure Olympia Publishing decided to publish this poetry collection. I do not recommend this book, but I highly recommend other books that OP has published. Thank you to them, nonetheless for the opportunity to read and review this.