Chronic Pixie Dream Girl by D.E. Kerr: Review

I received a copy of D.E. Ker­r’s Chron­ic Pix­ie Dream Girl for review pur­pos­es. As always, this review reflects only my hon­est thoughts on the book.

Chronic Pixie Dream Girl
by D.E. Kerr

Pub­li­ca­tion Date: May 31st 2018

ebook; 33 Pages

Genre: Poet­ry

Purchase a copy

My Review

I’ve been lucky enough to work with mag­a­zines like Blan­ket Sea that show­case poet­ry of the “chron­ic” sort (like my poems Win­ter­green and The Cure, pub­lished with them a few months back!). I’ve even got a man­u­script in the very ear­ly stages that con­sid­ers degrees of life with chron­ic ill­ness, men­tal and phys­i­cal.   But, before read­ing D.E. Ker­r’s Chron­ic Pix­ie Dream Girl, I’d yet to read a col­lec­tion of just that.

With that in mind, I was imme­di­ate­ly drawn into this chap­book.  When we first talked about my review­ing it, the title itself caught my eye and, as I start­ed read­ing, my excite­ment was justified:

“Do you want a list

Alpha­bet­i­cal maybe,

Or would you prefer

To know

About my chron­ic ills

Chrono­log­i­cal­ly?”

-Most­ly I’m Just Sick of Your Assumptions

From ear­ly on, I was refreshed by read­ing these poems.  While read­ing, I felt as though many of these pieces could be look­ing at my life, too–the ref­er­ences to symp­toms and diag­noses especially.

This is a short­er chap, so it’s easy to read in a sin­gle sit­ting.  I spread it out over three read­ings myself –I love to make a good book last as long as I can!

On a more craft-based point, I was excit­ed to see an assort­ment of rhyming poems.  Rhymes may not be “in,” but it’s a tool I high­ly respect–a well-done rhyme can be wonderful!

In sit­ting down to write this review, I came back time and again to one word: “refresh­ing.” It may seem strange to think that for a book about such a heavy top­ic, yet, for me, as some­one with sim­i­lar “chron­ic ills,” it was true. It’s refresh­ing to see my own diag­noses with­in a poem (that I did­n’t write!).  It was refresh­ing to see them along­side the light­ness of a rhyme.  I want­ed to keep telling our speak­er, it was refresh­ing to be remind­ed that we aren’t alone in these feel­ings and experiences.

Be sure to pick up your own copy of Chron­ic Pix­ie Dream Girl when it comes out in a few days and Ker­r’s oth­er books! Plus, stay tuned for a future review of D.E. Ker­r’s Malig­nant Mir­ror Maze here on Pen­cils & Pages!

About the Author

D. E. Kerr writes con­fes­sion­al poet­ry and fic­tion with­in Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia, on her phone or lap­top, scrawled in note­books or on nap­kins — what­ev­er she can find to write upon. She was fea­tured in the 2018 char­i­ty poet­ry anthol­o­gy “Please Hear What I’m Not Say­ing” edit­ed by Isabelle Keny­on, all pro­ceeds of which went to MIND, a UK based men­tal health char­i­ty. Her debut poet­ry col­lec­tion “Car­ni­val Games” will be released on April 21st 2018 in both e‑book and paperback.

When not writ­ing, she can be found read­ing with cof­fee or tea (usu­al­ly cof­fee), play­ing Leg­end of Zel­da, or watch­ing an obscene amount of a TV series in a short amount of time.

Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads