Thank you Netgalley for the advance reader copy of The Drum That Beats Within Us by Mike Bond in exchange for an honest review. This is a powerful, beautiful book of poetry that has a little something for everyone. The poem Absoroka made me think of my dad, while others I really connected with. I shared one with my best friend and she immediately went out and bought the book.

This is a nice collection of poetry. I enjoyed many of the poems, but I felt like the book itself would have been better had the poems being organized into categories.

I haven't read a book of poetry from front to back in a very long time and I will say that I am happy with having this be the book that brought me back. Mike Bond, who I've never heard of, is an excellent poet and brings ideas that many people don't recognize anymore, or don't recognize and it's pretty awesome. I wonder what his novels read like, so I will be looking into those as well, but the poetry is well-written, well-thought-out, and just an excellent approach to life, the universe, and everything. He used great figurative language, appropriate for students (I may bring some of these into the classroom) and his intro was actually incredible. I'm all in on Bond's poetry, you should definitely check it out.

The Drum that Beats Within Us by Mike Bond

Published: November 20, 2018
Big City Press
Genre: Poetry
Pages: 123
KKECReads Rating: 4/5
I received a copy of this book for free, and I leave my review voluntarily.

MIKE BOND is the author of nearly a dozen best-selling novels, a war and human rights journalist, ecologist, international energy expert and award-winning poet. He has covered wars, revolutions, terrorism, military dictatorships and death squads in the Middle East, Latin America, Asia and Africa, and environmental issues including elephant poaching, habitat loss, wilderness survival, whales, wolves and many other endangered species. His novels place the reader in intense experiences in the world's most perilous places, in dangerous liaisons, political and corporate conspiracies, wars and revolutions, making "readers sweat with [their] relentless pace" (Kirkus) "in that fatalistic margin where life and death are one and the existential reality leaves one caring only to survive." (Sunday Oregonian). He has climbed mountains on every continent and trekked more than 50,000 miles in the Himalayas, Mongolia, Russia, Europe, New Zealand, North and South America, and Africa.

“But the goal has always been the same: say the truth and make it memorable.”

What I loved about this poetry collection is the simplicity of some poems and the complexity of others. The emotions captured, the scenery described, and the humanity within these words were beautiful.

I found the stanzas enlightening and the words bold. This collection made me want to go back to South Dakota and be in the vast beauty of such a remarkable creation.

I felt these words in my soul, and I loved deciphering their meaning. Mike captured poetry beautifully, and he delivered it so that no two people would read the same line the same way.

These poems are open to interpretation. They are meant to create conversation and understanding and bring enlightenment. I found Bond’s appreciation for the process robust and his ability to capture a moment timeless.

I enjoyed this book of poems. Moving and thought provoking. We need more poetry in the world. I appreciate the authors point of view a great deal

This was really hit or miss with me, while some of the poems resonated well others fell flat. From what I know of the author he is not indigenous which makes me wonder at why he included poetry that used culture that was not his own to write about. (Correct me if I’m wrong)

I felt this book was trying to be something it wasn't, and this collection at times felt very appropriative. I'm all for a Ferlinghetti-esque book of poetry that unpacks the complex relationship between us and nature, and the experience of living in the West - but it lacked any real heart. Ultimately it was overwrought and inauthentic.

When reviewing poetry collections I find myself evaluating the number of poems I enjoyed with the number of poems that underwhelmed me. I wanted to love this collection because I am drawn to poetry that explores our connection with nature, but ultimately I found it too pedantic.

I’m trying to read more poetry, but it’s not a genre I feel particularly comfortable with—or comfortable reviewing. Given that, and considering that responses to poems are especially individual, I have to say that this collection didn’t resonate with me. There were a few poems that I really enjoyed (particularly “Paradise Ducks”) and the occasional line that particularly struck me (“These are the wine days of October” and “no more than this the sun could hope to hide its dying from the sea”) but in general I wasn’t able to connect with this collection.

Thank you to NetGalley and Big City Press for providing me with an ARC of this title in return for my honest review.

I'm a fan of poetry, enjoy nature, live in Wyoming, so thought this collection might resonate. And it's not bad--but I made it halfway through and just was never drawn in. It didn't connect with me in anyway. I'm glad I gave Bond a try, but his poetry didn't spark anything for me.

My poetry reading is still in the beginning experimental stages. Being a novice, I pick poetry books like I pick most others, I'm captured by a cover. Such was the case with Mike Bond's The Drum that Beats Within Us, which called out to the beast and nature lover in me. How could I lose when the insides seemed destined to be full of connections between humans and their surroundings?

Bond believes poetry was born the moment we began to speak. It existed before then in "what whales and wolves sing." Every clan needs stories and lessons from the past, and to make them more memorable, the stories were often told in rhythm and rhyme. Poetry and stories are "how we find meaning in the incomprehensible, beautiful, tragic and sacred mystery of life."

This line sums up how I feel about poetry: "What counts is what we learn emotionally. When something hits us emotionally it stays in our experience..." Poetry feels like the ultimate in emotional connection. I can't tell you what poetry is, what different meters and rhythms mean. I can only tell you what I happen to connect with emotionally, what gets me in my gut. Mike Bond's work does that, and I connected with the themes of the havoc we are wreaking on the earth:

Hungry Magpie

A hungry magpie
is a world
out of order,

when after so much killing
there's nothing left
to die.

The earth barren
as the raw red skin
of Mars,

the seas deadly
as the toxic
skies.

And to think
one little biped
did it all.

Paradise Ducks

Paradise ducks don't know
about men and steel.
In rainforest rivers
they love
and raise their young,
always paired, the
dark multicolored male
and white-necked female.

Paradise ducks so easily fly,
don't know about airplanes
carrying men halfway
round the world,
shotguns in their baggage,
men who shoot thousands of ducks
for fun,
who have shot ducks in Brazil,
Mongolia, Canada, and now
in the far south
of the South Island
of New Zealand.

Paradise ducks mate for life.
Men don't.
A duck never kills.
Men do.
Ducks love misty dawns
that men sleep through,
flashing rivers and skies
blue as the gun barrels
that the men to love
to kill ducks
look down
before they fire.

Most Evil Thing

The most tragic thing
humans do
is war,

our greatest joy
is life's
creation.

The most evil
is to call one
the other.

* * *

Mike Bond is an award-winning poet, ecologist, and war and human rights journalist. I loved his no-punches-pulled approach, addressing the our vanishing natural world and calling us to account. This is a book I will buy for my growing poetry shelf and reread with pleasure.

"These are the wine days
of October
when trees, threshed
of leaves, bow down
in prayer to winter,
when the sun, anguished
like an old hound,
leaves its bed
late, going early,
when the sap of life
is dried and frozen."

I don't like to write lengthy reviews of poetry because I feel like it's such a subjective thing--plus, with any collection, there will be some that I enjoy and resonate with and others that don't hit home for me or that I might not even "get." And such is the case here. As a whole, I did like this collection and found that I really enjoyed Bond's nature imagery--it was very evocative. I also really enjoyed his essay in the beginning, and for the most part, agree with what he had to say. A solid collection, I'd recommend this if you enjoy poetry of the philosophical and natural kind.

*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free book.*

"The Drum That Beats Within Us" is a collection of poetry, dealing with diverse topics, most of them nature and related feelings. Poems cover a wide range of areas, not all of which can be really guessed from the poems. The author, Mike Bond, is a well known landscape writer and enthusiast of the last wild places on earth.

I really wanted to like these poems but somehow they did not really work for me. I really liked some poems, while other did not really work for me. In additon, I found the Native American inspired ones a bit dubious. In addition, it would've really helped me to know where the poems are set, e.g. what kind of landscape in which part of the world.

3 Stars

A pretty good poetry book. It's definitely better than I thought it would be. I'd definitely recommend it for anyone into poetry books.

An eclectic collection of poems, that draws from the poet's experience as an ecologist and war journalist. The introduction to poetry as a form of literature was a good add-on for people who might not be very well versed with reading poetry, and serves as a guide to what follows. The book started off magnificently, citing the importance and relevance of poetry in history and culture, but somewhere down the line the writing failed to match up. Some of the poems were really good and struck a chord, while others felt bland and lacked any connection.

Excellent poetry book, i loved the poetrys about the nature and about love. The author have a very good writing. My favorites poetry's of the book is: ''May I Meet You There'', ''I Cherish You'', ''DNA'', ''Harbour'', ''To The Poets Amoung Us'', ''Unity'' and ''The Nautilu's Secret''.
I also liked very much the introduction/preface of the book where the author talks about poetry and what is poetry.

I really liked the preface of this poetry book! The poems were unique and I was drawn to some much more than others. The topics were far ranging from personal to global issues. I think environmental poetry Is one of the main themes. Kudos to Bond for reaching outside his genre!

"I have so long been afraid and have now nothing to fear but the pain itself."

Poems with great metaphors and comparisons to the aspects of nature, wild and mountains, Mike Bond, hits of a great poetry anthology with this one, talking about love and its tragedies, existential questions, many issues of the present-day world, and other life experiences. Each poem is crafted with unique style and imagery. The poems are an odd collection with an eerie sense, to most of the poems. I connected well with few poems but all of it resonated in my mind, in those moments I moved on to the next.

This poetry collection also inspired me to write a couple of poems and that's what makes me say, that this collection makes your thoughts stir as you read, line by line. One of my favourite types of poetry is the poems which only focuses on the thoughts of the writer; yes, every poem is built by the thoughts of the writer but none goes in-depth like the one written just about one's mind rambling away. What stood up amongst all for me, the poems are of the external world but belongs to the internal one. This anthology turned out to be a fascinating read! The fact that this one belongs to Mike Bond is what that drew me to this book. It is a very self-reflecting read. I suggest this to anyone who loves the wild and nature or holds a special place in heart for poetry.

I find it hard to read poetry like a book. Reading one poem at a time, I enjoy how Bond uses landscape to convey emotion. He rhymes well, though I prefer a combination of rhyme and free verse.

Mike Bond speaks with a strong expressive voice and his best work is permeated with a profound sense of place.