Personal journeys are just that. And in reading an author’s personal journey—especially one written as poetry—the reader can only infer the inspiration for an individual poem and the thread that binds a collection of poems together. And that is a good thing. It requires readers to engage a poem by reading it and looking for parallels in their own lives that resonate with the work. To superimpose one’s experience onto a poem while reading it creates a synergy that is made up author’s intent and readers’ interpretation; the result is an experience greater than each separate part and unique to the author and each reader.

Little Wolf, Little Warrior, a collection of poems by Kelley Christine Phelan, creates such an experience. Her poems are honest and sometimes raw. They run the gamut from personal trauma to observations of the natural world, all with an undercurrent of celebration.

There is an algorithm to poetry: Experience; Feel; Write; Share. The last step is the most daunting, as it comes with the potential to be exposed and misunderstood. Sharing poetry is an act of bravery—and if executed well, as Phelan has— creates that special relationship between author, poem, and reader. If we run the algorithm backward, we arrive at Phelan’s experiences, which we can safely assume are just as honest as her poems.

Phelan is to be applauded for giving us an honest look at aspects of her life to which we would otherwise not be exposed: Little Wolf, Little Warrior is brave in its undertaking and synergistic and moving in the readers’ experience.

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This author knows how to capture the reader and make them connect to their writing. I really liked the one titled "I am stuck" one of the verses reads:

"The trenches of my soul scream,
I need my other half,
My throat wants to be expressed,
But, instead, incarcerated,
I am stuck."

I loved the whole poem, this one really stuck out to me becasue it experessed some of the feelings that one might go through when they lose someone either in a break up or through a death. All in all I have to recomend this book to anyone who likes poetry. ( )

This book is a collection of poetries , poetry of life, nature, animal cruelty, wrong depiction of animals in movies, love, pain ,hurt, drama, nature, day , night, season, natural disaster, feeling, humans, talks of various other genre and the whole book has some wonderful write ups and the author taste and choice of words is amazing, she write the poetry whole heartedly and did give her best. She wrote with great literary devices like similies, metaphor, irony, Sublime and she talks it out in a way that anyone can love her writing. ( )