Beautiful words. The reader is in for a heartbreaking journey, but it's worth it. I loved the way she described her emotions and the pain she went through. It was very inspiring. Poetry is very subjective, but I liked how she made her words flow and managed to convey feeling with not using too many words. Fans of Lang Leav will love this book.

Some promise in this collection which does tend to focus on relationships in it's many forms. I found Whispers From the Moon rather a mixed bag. Some of poems didn't quite hit the mark with me personally, but I also found a few of them rather memorable.

Would check the poet's other work on the back of this.

With thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

Once again, thank you NetGalley for pulling through with this collection of poetry!  I was interested in this one at first because I LOVE the cover.  There is something so beautiful and ethereal about the profile of a woman; to layer in the moon makes me love it even more since I associate more with the moon because I am female.

This collection of poetry is divided into four sections, mimicking the change of the moon over a month.  I loved this intuitive division because it not only parallels changes in life from month-to-month but also on the grander scale of years and relationships.   

The language in this collection is so dense and rich with texture and color and imagery.  Each poem feels layered with meaning and emotion and almost like something you can touch.  Some pieces, such as the first one titled "The Language of Love" and later "A Hive," invoke the slow pour of honey while others like "My Ocean" are laced with salt-spiked air and stormy ozone.  I appreciated the attention to detail and word usage in each piece as well as how heavily Broda pulled on nature in each poem, working to incorporate and use the natural to describe her feelings and emotions.  What better to catch the turmoil and grief of a broken or failing relationship than rain or a storm?  Using nature adds so much detail that most people can relate to and understand the energy and feelings of because we all deal with weather and nature on an everyday basis.  I think that using these elements in poetry is brilliant and adds both drama and feeling while making it read beautifully.   

Along with the imagery and language, the overall subjects of the poems in this collection are touching and real.  For me, it is easier to read and understand what someone may be trying to communicate through a poem when you can understand and even relate to the subjects.  In this collection, love and loss run rampant.  This is combined with broken hearts and hope.  Along with this, I enjoyed the last few poems because there was a very blatant stream of women-centric power and feminism running throughout.  I loved that the author included these pieces at the end, signifying a change in her self and her ideas after her broken relationship(s) and her ultimate healing and coming back to herself.  These are things that women should be reading more of; how to reconnect with self and heal after being broken.

Overall, this collection easily gets four stars for me.  I would have enjoyed a short introduction that discussed the author's ideas of connecting the poetry to the phases of the moon and perhaps what that meant to her, but as it is, this is an excellent collection.

I ADORE THE COVER! I like that the book is organized by the four phases of the moon.
There were a couple of poems I really liked, most leaning towards reclaiming the female body and
a journey of self-discovery. My favorites were the ones that confronted abusive relationships. I enjoyed experiencing a new poet and her writing style.

That said, I agree with something another reviewer mention. Many of the poems felt broken or incomplete. Because so many of the poems were about motherhood and other experiences I've never had, it was difficult to connect with those subjects. Sometimes I read for pages before I found a poem that resonated with me.

Broda’s collection of poetry displays a wide range of very relatable emotions centering around both the joy and pain that makes up the fabric of love. The collection is broken up into four different phases of the moon: full, waning, eclipse, and waxing. It is very obvious that she delved quite deeply into her own heart and life experience in order to produce these poems. Unfortunately, this collection just did not appeal to me. One of the main issues I had with it was the fact that I completely failed to connect to much of it. There were many times where I was unable to understand her imagery and what she was going for with a poem’s meaning.

Another issue was that I could not understand why certain poems were connected with the name of the section they fell under, or how they related to any of the other poems within that section. Though she made a big point of breaking the collection up into four phases of the moon, I personally could not find any correlation among the poems within each section. I came away not knowing why exactly she had done this, due to the fact that there did not seem to be a specific theme that linked the poems together.

To me, things felt jumbled and unorganized so it was challenging to follow along. This pulled me out of the reading experience and tore away any connection to the words for me. Overall, it is not a poorly written collection by any means. It was just simply not for me and I’m sure many other readers will take away much more than I did. I applaud Broda for writing down such personal details and emotions and putting them out there for others to read.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a review copy.
I gave this a three out of five stars. I enjoyed reading whispers from the moon and I highlighted some lines. None of the poems really stood out to me though. I didn't find that they made me feel a lot of things.
Some lines I liked:
"you can't tame a lion (it will turn on you)"

"the vow I promise to honor the woman in me, even when poison pours from her lips, searing holes of insecurity into her beautiful skin"

"I will water her with light, feed her kindness, kiss her scars, bathe her with love, until do us part"

"evolving into a great warrior I am a fighter, stronger than before molding flesh into metal, becoming my own protector"

Warning: I’m no poetry guru.

Most of the poems, if not all, felt broken. Like they were missing something. The read was quick and quaint. It just felt incomplete. Maybe that is what the author wanted us to feel, maybe I missed the message. Try it out for yourself, this might be the right read for you.

#WhispersFromTheMoon #NetGalley

Disclaimer: I received this book from Netgally for review purposes.

Can I just start by saying how much I absolutely love this cover ? Like, whole heartedly absolutely adore it. It should win awards. It's perfect.

The title is also incredibly striking, so with the two combined it really wraps up into a perfect little book.

The poems were strong and well suited, offering up so many sharp visuals. You can feel what she's feeling and picture her words so clearly.

Loved.

I had mixed feelings about this. In general, there were a lot of poems that seemed to have very abrupt endings and were confusing, but were very pretty. But about halfway through, she started introducing poems centering around heartbreak, which were both beautiful and emotional. Many of her other poems deal with abusive relationships, healing, and feminism. This was a decent collection of poetry, and there were some parts that I really enjoyed, but at times I felt like I was just reading through poems to see if there would be any really good ones coming up.

Whispers From The Moon is a brief debut collection of confessional poetry written by Lee Broda. Originally from Israel, Broda is the founder of Women Creating Change that supports Middle Eastern women in various forms of the artistic endeavors including film and media.
The first noticeable thing about this slim collection of free verse poetry is the beautiful book cover. Broda has organized the book in four themes relating to the rotation of the moon: full (moon) – waning – eclipse – waxing. Many people believe that human mood and behavior is reflected by the position or light of a full moon.

It can be challenging to portray ones most vulnerable thoughts and feelings on the page, and even more so too inspire others with our words—this is the task of a good poet. In the first part of the book, there is a reflective maternal thread that is a theme of a few poems: “my child” is Broda’s longing for a baby though her womb is empty – “keepsake” – “a picture book of you” – “my women” and another poem of family life – “shabbat” is a reflection of her Jewish family heritage at a family gathering. This, was the strongest most enjoyable part of the book.

The rest of the book is about the loss of her relationship which cycles through various stages of disillusionment, betrayal, deep sadness and grief. After such intensity of emotions, the division of property, returning keys, moving on etc. it would seem there would be a period of acceptance, growth and true healing. However, this stage doesn’t really seem to occur. It is easy to feel sympathetic, yet it shouldn’t be the focus of a poem. In “bewitched” - ”my heart whispers” Broda has learned to listen to her heart and intuition, and I wish the best for her. 3* GOOD. ** With thanks and appreciation to the author via NetGalley for the DDC for the purpose of review.

This was a quick read, but I found the poems hard to identify with. The cover art is so beautiful though!

A collection of poetry that uses the phases of the moon for its transition pieces. This collection deals with finding love and watching it grow into something more than can be handled. Love, betrayal, loss and moving on.

*eARC provided by the publisher for an honest review, all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own*

This was my first time reading Lee Broda's work, so I wasn't sure what to expect. But after researching the author and seeing some of the work she's involved in, I was expecting something that was fiercly feminist, powerful and moving. Sadly, that wasn't what I got. Some of the poetry was enjoyable and moving, whilst others felt like filler or fell flat and didn't add anything. I will admit poetry is very difficult to review especially because it's so subjective and is really dependant on the individual. I did enjoy the layout of the poetry and how it was done in different sections, with it being very positive an uplifting at the end.

Here are some of my favourite pieces from Whispers From The Moon:

'his hold on me was terrifying;
I shrunk a size
to fit his expectations,
to win a sliver of appreciation
that never came'


'I learned how to live with forgiveness,
how to let go of the pain
that came with loving you,
how to let go of the idea
of not having you
anymore

painting over the images of us in my mind,
removing you
from each frame,
peeling you off my heart,

forgiving you for everything you aren't,

forgiving myself for waiting
for you to become it
one day.'



'his punishment is cruel
yet brilliant;
i surrender all control,
give him the key -
now he can turn me on or off,
play my heart's strings,
operate the gentle machinery
as he wishes
more
less
enough
stop
go
come back
hard wiring confusion into
my system,
a virus i can't destroy or remove.
unable to read his intentions,
i'm left to his mercy,
swallowed nightly by the emptiness
of these cold black sheets'

I got this beautiful poetry book as an ARC. I was head over heels in love with it. Since a while, I´m pretty obsessed with everything moon and star related so this book looked perfect. This would´ve definitely been a cover buy.
Here´s the thing though, I haven´t loved it as much as I hoped.
I discovered modern poetry a while ago. Everyone was talking about Milk and Honey at that time and even though I didn´t enjoy this particular book, I discovered my love for this kind of poetry and am since then looking for other books.

As I said, my expectations for „Whispers from the moon“ were pretty high, maybe that was my fault, to go like that in this book.
It is divided into the four chapters. Full, waining, eclipse and waxing. I like the ides behind that. There is almost no illustration in it, which is rare in this sort of book but doesn´t matter much. I´m very fond of the cover, like I mentioned before, I love the moon.
But here comes the sad part. I haven´t felt anything while reading. I think especially in poetry books this is a major point. I want to feel things. I want to be sad or happy or angry or something between. I take breaks while reading so I can feel everything, slowly one emotion after the other.
But here, there was nothing.
For me, it seemed like I had found an old notebook or diary of a teenage girl I didn´t know. I could not understand the whys and I didn´t care much about her. It seemed like a few sentences from various pages thrown together to make one piece.

So sadly this book wasn’t for me. Of course that doesn’t have to be the case for everybody, it´s very short so you can easily check it out if you are curoius. But for me, there was something missing. Sadly.

I’m loving this book،it was beautiful written ،the words were deep and thoughtful ،the romantic stuff I didn’t care for that much because I don’t like poems about love، but I did like some of them. My favorite poems are in the last part ‘Waxing’ it was about begin free and finally moving on .
This was an enjoyable experience ، I look forward to read more books by Lee Broda .this will definitely be one of the books I think about throughout my life and I think I will reread it many times.

I posted my review on good reads,https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2691109893

Broda presents a well crafted, beautiful book of poetry in Whispers from the Moon. A look at how people come together, fall apart, and ultimately heal. Highly recommended.

A beautiful and heartfelt collection of poetry about love, loss, grief and heartache divided into sections according to the phases of the moon. Deceptively simple, each piece speaks to the reader and is sure to remind them of a moment or emotion from their life. Though short, the pieces are beautifully formed, not a word wasted, each carefully measured and chosen, to give voice to the author's experiences in a way that is almost universal. There is a natural flow from moments of loss and heartbreak to the later works that speak of empowerment and strength. I would recommend this book to fans of Amanda Lovelace or Hollie McNish, or for anyone who wants to branch out into reading poetry but is unsure where to begin.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Not really the type of poetry I personally enjoy. There is something lacking in the writing, it's a boring read. By the end of this book I just felt tired. A few writing classes and an increase in vocabulary would do this author a lot of justice.

Beautiful poetry soul touching at points , I really loved this book of poetry they aren’t light and fluffy, if you’re looking for that these poems aren’t for you. This is heart felt emotion and touching nerves emotion, it’s raw and beautiful.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*

Lee Broda is an Israeli-born poet who writes about love, loss, heartache and some more heartache.
I cannot fathom why but I just could not connect to the poems. They were all–more or less–the same to me. Our lyrical I (always a she) either is very much in love, has just fought with her man or has split up from him. Yes, it's also about healing, but I just could not feel anything after reading the same thing over and over again. Sorry.

2,5 stars because some poems were okay.

"when God appears at the door of your soul,
open it wide,
let her enter,
fill and expand you."

"how did we become strangers,
chasing a fairy tale,
that existed only in our minds,
fantasies that made us blind,
and now all we're able to see
is our fear."