I absolutely loved this poetry collection. It was something about the writing style, topics and language that made me really enjoy it, especially when it was references to nature.

interesting poems and interesting perspective. The reader does get poems on the longer side - half a page or more. a few on the shorter side. It is not a long book. There is a Native American/Aboriginal focus.

"The Drum That Beats Within Us" is a great collection of poetry. I'll definitely be looking for more from this author.

"We are still Adam
in his velvet cage,
Eve still hungry for an answer.
To understand the atom
you must build a bomb;
to understand life
you must destroy it.”

I liked this book of poetry - or rather - most of it. There were the odd poems that just seemed like a mundane ramble of the mind. But poetry is subjective and means something different to every reader, so perhaps it was just poetry being poetry… Quite often as well, if you covered the title of the poems in this book, you could quite easily interpret it in your own way, which was nice.

I was intrigued by the author’s experiences of the topics that he wrote about. Quite often he referenced Native Americans. Rarely do we see an authors heritage or roots come through in a murder mystery or chick lit. So I looked him up for more information and was surprised to read that he isn’t Native American despite his poems indicating otherwise.

Mike Bond uses gorgeous imagery to portray his thoughts and feelings around a variety of his life experiences. While some of that imagery was stunning, I struggled with the topical flow of the poetry. The subject matter seemed to vary greatly and switch from natural setting to idealistic thought. Some of the poems shared imagery of the United States (Manhattan, Absaroka, etc.), and yet others described war scenes from afar. The shifting seemed sporadic and distracting and might have benefited from being organized into topical sections. That being said, sometimes disorganization becomes the framework for art.

I also struggled with the Native American imagery. Whether it was intentional or not, the cover combined with a focus on nature and mention of tribal nations in the introduction drew me in. As a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, I looked forward to seeing how Mr. Bond would explore these topics. I appreciate the emotional support and thought that Mr. Bond conveys towards our Nations in his poetry. The buffalo on the cover instantly brings to mind native culture, and yet it is not just our tribal nations that the buffalo symbolizes. Bison symbolize the plains, the freedom to roam this beautiful country, and a species returning from endangerment. I didn't see a clear connection in Mr. Bond's poetry to the cover unless it was linked to the small portion of poems conveying his sentiment towards Native Americans. I wish I had another idea to suggest for a cover, but the breadth of subject matter challenges a visual pairing.

Best of luck!

Thank you for the opportunity to read this, in exchange for my feedback.

I found this book to be dark, heartbreaking, and intensely thought-provoking.

I did not connect with each poem in this book, but that's how poetry works. However, three spoke to me (May I Meet You There; I Cherish You; and Every Good). Every Good, the shortest poem in the book, was the most profound for me, "Every good intention hides a spine of poison." I wanted to dispute this statement, but it's impossible.

3/5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this book. While I enjoyed some of the poems in this, I don't think this book was for me.

Mike Bond’s latest book of poetry, “The Drum that Beats Within Us,” is a deep dive into the past, present and future of America’s existence. He touches on abuses of the indigenous people who came before us, the sad history of their conquer and then relocation. He weaves into his poetry his own experience of various emotions of love, loss, pain, and grief.

My favorite poem in the collection is, “May I Meet You There,” a personal love poem addressed to his partner. I was particularly touched by the lines:
We’re all sentenced
To death, you say.
What greater victory
than to love another
far more than oneself.

Another touching love poem is “I Cherish You,” where Bond deliberates on the meanings of love and cherish and what is easier or harder to do.

I also enjoyed “Sorrow,” a succinct, three-line poem about grief that seems to never end. This was very relatable in my current season. Just hearing again from another enduring similar pain is a sort of relief.

“Homecoming” was an interesting poem about how things change over time. It specifically reflects on a childhood town, or people that you used to know, but as time proceeded, who they are now is unknown to you. It is a very interesting truth that you don’t realize. Somehow in your mind you imagine that when you leave a place, that it remains as it is and doesn’t change, however, as this poem points out, you are sorely mistaken upon your return.

Other poems Bond has written are dark and depressing. There are some that I disagree with, but there’s no need to throw out the entire collection because of a few differences of opinion. I believe the book as a whole of more than sixty poems is an excellent, thought-provoking collection with much weighty content. I fully recommend it to any lover of poetry.

I received this eBook free of charge from Big City Press via NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. I did not receive any fiscal compensation from either company for this review and the opinions expressed herein are entirely my own.

The author's preface ruined this collection for me. Stop ranting, and let your work stand for itself.

I was surprised to see a book of published poems by Mike Bond. I'm more familiar with his action-packed mystery novels. I've read and reread his poems. You can tell his passion is strong with the nature and animals.

I thoroughly enjoyed most of his poems and it was refreshing to see Mike write outside of his genre. I look forward to more of his works.

this was an odd collection of poetry. i liked the poems that had to do with nature and the outdoors. but there were other random ones scattered in there that seemed out of place. it was a very negative tone to many of the poems. honestly the cover drew me to this book but i didn't get a lot out of it

Living in the Dakotas, with the wild prairies, there were times I could feel the remnants that are echoed in Mike Bond's book of poetry. I was especially touched by some of the ones reflecting birds: Hungry Magpie, Crow, etc. and how the idea of how the birds and nature are reflected by our actions. I also liked Homecoming, which is so true. Hard to go back home again. I also liked Evening, March which again touches on how man is destructive. The poems here are strong and well written, and leave traces beyond the page, making me rethink. A good example is shown in the poem Nothing: Nothing will always be true. As you can probably guess, I highly recommend this book. If you like poetry, nature, etc. you will like this collection.

I enjoyed reading this book of thought reflecting poems.

Just taking time to immerse yourself in words, and enjoy the beauty of spending time doing this.

In the preface, Mike Bond laments the conflict between the poetic establishment and his own poetic perspective. He also states that "When something hits us emotionally it stays in our experience. " I am a woman who teaches literature. The vast amount of poetry I have read is my frame of reference. I find the poems in this anthology akin to modern art...the simplicity cloaks the significance of meaning to the point I feel no emotional connection to the essence and spirit of the subject. I agree with the poet; poetry is essential to humankind. I just find Bond's poems lacking the complexity and depth that elicits true emotional connection and communication. The preface should have been a warning to me: Bond's criticism of the poetic establishment. Free verse in the hands of Whitman (the establishment) is drastically different from that in Bond's. The establishment may not be wrong.

Beautifully written.

I have not spent much time in the western U.S, but Mike Bond's writing took me there. It is obvious that he loves the terrain and wants to share that respect with his readers.

Good book of poetry! I enjoyed it quite a bit. I really enjoy that poems use nature to help capture a feeling. Beautiful.

"Returning, we find
the past has lost
the present.
It stands alone,
discreet within us,
no longer true".

-Homecoming by Mike Bond

I usually read classic poetry but do like to delve into modern poetry as well. I was drawn to this collection by the cover and the beautiful title and as such it does not disappoint. Nature, and our role in it and with each other seems to be the central thread that connects the poems collected here. There are poems of love, death, nature's destruction, and life, as seen through the eyes of animals as well as a question for humanity: why are we here? What is our purpose? What responsibility do we and should we have toward nature? As with all poetry, I connected with some more than others. The poetry is sometimes raw, painful, exquisite but there is always the sense that it was written from the heart.

This collection of short form poems touch on themes of nature, Americana, and the Native American experience, but it covers a lot of ground and is, ultimately, a reflection of Bond’s experience and philosophy in poetic form. Among the 80+ poems, there are some as short and sparse as haiku, but most run between a page or two.

In the prologue, Bond takes up the eternal argument of whether free verse is poetry, and the antithesis of whether rhymed and metered poetry is “serious poetry.” His view, not dissimilar to my own, is that there is room for the coexistence of these two poetic forms. That said, he overwhelmingly favors free verse in practice – as do most poets in the modern era – though not exclusively so.

I enjoyed this collection. It offers food-for-thought, beautiful language, and doesn’t wallow in a view of the world (or the poet’s life) as a fetid morass (as is a common theme in poetry collections these days.) It’s worth reading as an exemplar of a personal poetic statement. The collection offers examples of verse that is evocative without sopping with sentimentality. In the prologue, Bond urges expression through the poetic form, and this is him putting his money where his mouth is.

In a bizarre twist, I found I preferred the poems that had a recognisable or more tradition meter, rhythm and rhyme scheme. I swear this is not me being a conservative literati who likes things to rhyme! Perhaps it’s because the more usual R & R poems had to do with nature and history and our connection to both so they spoke to me more. I do like free verse but certain young ‘poets’ who create by pressing return after every other word have made me wary of the shorter forms of it. That said, most of the free verse was about more immediate human emotion. It’s probably very telling that I failed to connect with it. Overall a decent collection. I enjoyed it, even if there wasn’t a stand out poem for me. I suspect that this is all emotionally honest verse – it reads that way – that is of special significance to the author, and really that’s as it should be with poetry. The drawback is that some of it didn’t communicate to the reader very well (imo).

I received a free copy of The Drum That Beats Within Us from NetGalley in exchange for an impartial review.

This collection of poetry wasn't quite what I expected. Based on the #NetGalley description and the cover, I thought the poems would center around the expansiveness of the West and man's place in nature. Rather the collection was at times very emotional and expressed the brevity of a life, any life. Over and over again, Bond revealed how everyone and everything ends up the same - dead. For example, in "Pennies of the Dawn" Bond writes:
I have so long been afraid
and have now nothing
to fear but pain itself,
like a man chained broken to a wall
hearing only the tramp of a captor's boot
down the hall.

In contrast he occasionally includes a poem like "A Child's Laugh" which is all exuberance and joy.
A child's smile,
her laugh,
and the whole world
is new.

Actually, one of the best parts of this collection is the preface where Bond espouses on the importance and value of poetry for telling humanity's stories; he suggests not only reading poetry but also writing it as a "window into ourselves, standing before a mirror to see who we are."