Poetry, the Language of Love.

Alison Cole’s title asks “Where isn’t Love?”

When I saw it, I was quick to say “oh, in Lagos where a 14- seater bus is made to sit 18 passengers, or 19 or 20 if some people sit on the laps of others.

But as I opened the book to read, I felt like it said “not so quick, let me explain”…

“Love hangs around in the most unusual places”.

Alison’s description of love is sure, it is not suggesting. The fluid taste of the words describing one of the finest gifts of humanity welcomes you and builds your interest to keep reading.

There is an obvious growth and change in the words of the author from the time he wrote “NOrTh of MY MIND” where he details hurt, healing, and suffering because he cannot help a friend heal with just a touch. Here, the author has healed and is no longer scared of burdening another person with the trauma he was raised in.

“We are Selfish, but not enough to burden another human with the same trauma we were raised in.”- Alison Cole in NOrTh of MY MIND.

Even if love seems to be the dominant theme in “Where Isn’t Love?”, the author describes dichotomy of existence, time, hurt, utopia, and growth.

In ‘Dichotomy’, the author discusses the duality of things and feelings and asserts that love is not a two-way thing, it has more than two sides.

In the poem ‘Temple of Love’, there is a desire to show love at its highest, the persona is ready to create a temple for his lover. He says “I’ll build a temple in your name ..I’ll start a new religion”, all in attempts to prove the height of his adoration.

Three times in the book, which is more times than any other, the author focuses on, and describes his lover’s eyes. In the poems dedicated to the lover’s eyes, the poet describes the overpowering power they possess. Love is further described as a continuous state of sacrificing, dedicating and committing to one another.

A line reads “if the unfortunate day comes where my lover says my presence causes more pain than love. I’ll be non-hesitant to end it”. This is a mix of heartbreak asserting the power of love.

Then in the next poem, the persona says that his lover’s eyes is indeed a weapon capable of making him to “come undone”. This reiterates the overpowering nature of her eyes.

The author’s idea of love is beginning to actualize by this time in the reader’s mind as different and not without a particular form.

This lover is raised on a pedestal above others before her. The author says “how you walked into my life and undermined every lover I ever had”. The beautiful essence of love is continuously crafted in the reader’s mind. Alison’s words make you feel like you’ve described love in a mediocre way your whole existence. His words have an image of perfection created in your head about it.

“Ten thousand nerve endings tell the heart it’s a new beginning”…

The poet speaks on his growth when he says “…we are here now. A better place. Where screaming at each other is our biggest problem but we still have love”.

He is healed from trauma and feels like his problems in loving are trivial and not as grand as what he experienced earlier on in life. What we have described in his debut book NOrTh of MY MIND..

There is a shift back to love in ‘A Better Lover’. The poem opens with this “When I said I love you, I should have tattooed yours name on my chest in place of my mum”. This line blew me away!!! But then there is regret in that line and the ones that follow it. The poet regrets to have done something other than what should have been done as his proof of love. This reveals the growth of the persona, coming to that realization.

In ‘Alright boy’, the author tells us what he’s been used to; a human who knows the words that helps him hide his feelings.

Eyes seems to be one of the most attractive characteristics of the lover described throughout the book. The author reveals that even if he’s written about her ten thousand times, “there would be a hundred thousand more beautiful expressions left unsaid”.

The author describes a toxic relationship in ‘Bad Dinner’ and the words have a way to dampen the elated mood built in the first few pages of the book.

There is something beautiful about the words used in ‘All this wealth’. The beauty of love, great love filled with all the good stuff like communication and passion are revealed in the poem.

In the poem ‘Book of Love’, you learn what this book is. What the author calls it “a holy book”.

This book isn’t just a body of work describing love, it teaches us qualities and attitudes to demonstrate in love. The poet says reaffirmation is a love drug that must be taken sparingly to make love secure.

In the later parts of the book, we see that not only love between two lovers is written about. The author writes about longing and love for a father who goes away and comes back with “more beards than he left with” and brothers with whom he makes important life decisions with despite being in different continents. Brothers with whom he makes “a perfect heptagonal vase” with and a connection that he defines the deepest because they shared the same womb.

‘Without You’ opens your heart to what love can be; comfort, something needed to exist.

“We aren’t two people anymore, we are one person with two distinct features”.

In ‘Our Phases of Love’, Alison describes the concept of two becoming one when they are in love.

Love is made a lot more attractive in this book. I’d advise that the best way to read this 10/10 book is with a pen highlighting all the words to woo your lover or gain a new one.