Falling Through Love by Akif Kichloo: Review

I received a copy of Akif Kichloo’s Falling Through Love for review pur­pos­es. As always, this review reflects only my hon­est thoughts on the book.

Falling Through Love
by Akif Kichloo

Pub­li­ca­tion Date: 5 Novem­ber 2019

Pub­lish­er: Andrews McMeel

Genre: Poet­ry, Mixed Media

 

 

Falling Through Love sub­merges read­ers into Kichloo’s deeply per­son­al yet wide­ly res­o­nant expe­ri­ences, explor­ing rela­tion­ships in their most exposed and hon­est states. Writ­ten in a vari­ety of poet­ic forms—free verse, rhyme, prose, and visu­al poet­ry—Falling Through Love takes the read­er on a poignant jour­ney with the writer, about chart­ing one’s own path in life, inves­ti­gat­ing fail­ure, fam­i­ly dynam­ics, and love. Look­ing at life back­ward and for­ward simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, this col­lec­tion brings forth new per­spec­tives on what it means to be alive, to have made mis­takes, to have fought for an iden­ti­ty, to have loved and lost and then loved and lost again.

Andrews McMeel | Amazon | Bookshop

My Review

I was lucky enough to pub­lish Akif’s poem, “Dream­ers Dream Dream­ers Do” in our very first issue of Nightin­gale & Spar­row. So, when he reached out to see if I’d be inter­est­ed in review­ing his full-length col­lec­tion, Falling Through Love, I knew I was in for a treat.  Even still, this col­lec­tion blew me away!

Read­ing Falling Through Love felt like what I imag­ine Alice felt like falling into Won­der­land. It’s beautiful—almost over­whelm­ing­ly so. It evokes a remark­able vari­ety and amount of emo­tions, and ulti­mate­ly caus­es you to look inward towards yourself.

I start­ed off on a par­tic­u­lar­ly emo­tion­al note when I spot­ted the acknowl­edge­ments page, where N&S was not­ed as the ini­tial pub­lish­er of “Dream­ers Dream Dream­ers Do.” It was the first time I’d seen my lit­tle lit mag/press not­ed in print beyond our own pub­li­ca­tions and it made me tear up a bit.  To ampli­fy the moment, Andrews McMeel is one of my favourite pub­lish­ers. Really—I hope to have a book of my own with them someday!

Of course, this “per­fect storm” was only the begin­ning.  The poems and art­work through­out Falling Through Love cre­ate an emo­tion­al jour­ney that you can’t help but relate to. In this book, there’s such a broad spec­trum of pain, love, and every­thing in between—something will inevitably hit home.

For me, this was the poem “Ele­gy for Our Unborn Child — 1 & 2.” This par­tic­u­lar piece struck me to the point that I had to put the book down for a moment to catch my breath.  In fact, I need­ed to pause before con­tin­u­ing at sev­er­al points.  Akif’s work is tru­ly pow­er­ful in that way. You’ll be doing your­self a favour in pick­ing up a copy of Falling Through Love for yourself.

About the Author

Akif Kichloo is a Poet, Doc­tor of Med­i­cine by pro­fes­sion, and Author of three full length poet­ry col­lec­tions: Falling Through Love (Andrews Mcmeel Pub­lish­ing, 2019), Poems That Lose (Read Out Loud Pub­lish­ing, 2017) & The Feel­ing May Remain (Read Out Loud Pub­lish­ing, 2016). A grad­u­ate of JU, Akif holds a bachelor’s degree in med­i­cine and surgery.

Akif Kichloo start­ed writ­ing at an ear­ly age, hav­ing con­tributed for pub­li­ca­tions like The Huff­in­g­ton Post and The Wire. His poems have appeared in Glass, Fly Paper Mag­a­zine, Obra / Arti­fact, Sher­aza, Nightin­gale & Spar­row, Homol­o­gy Lit, Kiss­ing Dyna­mite, Verse of Silence, and more. In addi­tion, he was invit­ed to speak at the pres­ti­gious TEDx stage at Christ Uni­ver­si­ty to present his talk Fol­low Your Confusion.

Amidst the uncer­tain­ties of this amaz­ing, ter­ri­ble, mag­i­cal, hor­ri­ble, yet beau­ti­ful, life, as he puts it, Akif Kichloo writes of love, grief, heal­ing and self care, post­ing a cou­ple of poems week­ly to his var­i­ous social media pages with a huge fol­low­ing of avid read­ers and poet­ry lovers from all over the world. You can fol­low him on Face­book, Insta­gram, Tum­blr, Pin­ter­est or Twit­ter @akifkichloo

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