Gentle Memories / Random Thoughts

Poems of hope, experience, and love

Poetry - General
82 Pages
Reviewed on 03/04/2021
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    Book Review

Reviewed by Carolina Restrepo for Readers' Favorite

Gentle Memories / Random Thoughts is a beautiful collection of poems. The subjects vary from love, experience, loss, happiness, even ants, and mostly with different observations about life. George R. Hopkins has a special way of portraying his thoughts and feelings on some of the most trivial and important aspects of our lives. The poems bring to life people and suffering, which will most definitely be similar to people’s life experiences. They seem almost as if yanked from someone’s diary, that is how real they are. They may be very private yet these are definitely universal feelings, memories, and topics. The poems help the reader remember that tiny details, small moments, and unconventional things in life are as important as big celebrations, milestones, and overall picture-perfect experiences.

I loved this collection of poems as much as I love reading. They all brought me a sense of peace, and most of all, I felt as if I wasn’t alone in the world, having feelings that can sometimes be too overwhelming. Some poems made me think about my past, some about my present, and there were a few that knocked the air out of my lungs and made me wish my future was here already. I related to many of the characters’ sufferings, experiences, thoughts, and dreams. This is one of those books that are just essential for any household; there will be moments when you don’t relate to a certain poem, but give it time, your experience will come, and you will feel as if this book warned and prepared you for what was coming.

Vernita Naylor

Words are explosive and they can impact anyone when a few are spoken. Words display what is in the heart of man, which can either encourage or destroy the receiver. In the beautiful book of poems, Gentle Memories/Random Thoughts: Poems of Hope, Experience, and Love by George R Hopkins, the reader will be touched with over thirty-five poems that evoke the many wonders of life. In this book, the author has shared poems from his personal experience over a course of fifty years which resonates with the essence of chances, secrets, ideas, self-discovery, family, and love. In each poem, experience the various parts of the author's journey as he walks through his different phases of life.

I fully enjoyed the personal touch of these poems as they guide us into the channels that life offered this author. We each have our own pathway and to share it allows others to escape into our world. Poems like Michael, The Old Autograph Book, The Key, Chances and Smoke offer an up-close and personal experience as we ride along with the author as he weaves through starting a family, memories of love lost but not forgotten, and how material things are not as important as it seems when it's lost. The reader will see the hope, experience, and gentleness with each poem, and they may see or recognize either themselves or a loved one within a few of them. If you love poetry, pick up a copy of this book. Enjoy!

Tammy Ruggles

Gentle Memories / Random Thoughts: Poems of Hope, Experience, and Love by George R Hopkins is a lovely collection of poems written over the course of fifty years. This unique construction shows Hopkins's thought process, observations, and creative journey's evolution over those fifty years. In these poems, you'll find themes that most can relate to, even though Hopkins wrote them on a personal level. You'll find themes on family, including children and grandchildren, among others. The poems are wide-ranging in emotion and depth but obviously come from his heart and soul. The pieces read like a commentary on life events, from love and loss, to hope and dreams, to nature, and more abstract ideas like creativity and imagination.

Hopkins has crafted a treasure of nostalgia and memories, some his own, some imagined. As a whole, the work reads like a cherished scrapbook of ideas, emotions, thoughts, and events--mementos and photographs created as words, with care and a sense of rhythm and lyricism enticing the senses. This writer has the ability to capture both small moments and large ideas, sometimes combining them in a way that is artful and intellectual at the same time. Some of the poems contain compelling contradictions, like in the poem "My Father's Hands", where his father's hands held both softness and force. Moments and memories are turned into little works of art--this is what Hopkins does best in this volume. He is also skilled at putting into words emotions and moments that are hard to describe--for example, that overwhelming rush of love you feel when your little child looks at you and whispers "I love you", or the way your children or grandchildren will always seem like that little child in your heart, no matter how old or big they get. Hopkins goes beyond simple writing or narration. Gentle Memories / Random Thoughts: Poems of Hope, Experience, and Love by George R Hopkins will put you in touch with your own memories and random thoughts.