What does it mean to live in the here and the now? Are we at one with our present selves and our current setting? Or are we a multitude of anomalies spread across multiple unknown and unexplored dimensions? It begs the question: what is life? And, are we really living it? Children love to quote that tomorrow never comes. Why’s that? Because once you get there, tomorrow is still a day ahead. So, in fact, tomorrow not only never comes, it really doesn’t exist. At least, not on our plane of comprehension. And what if the tomorrow we seek has already happened? And, if it’s already happened, what part did we play in making tomorrow happen? It’s destiny: “I dreamed that my Destiny passed me by/ a week ago, or a month ago, or a year or two./ Destiny rules all time it lightly touches./ Unbound, it adheres to no snuggly fitting interval.” And then there’s time – is it really a figment of our imagination? It’s so fleeting – here briefly, then gone again. But words are constant – or are they? “Mankind’s a poem, short, soon passed./ Old men are not what they were young./ Sonnets and Haikus will not last,/ lines in the tome of time, unsung.” Deep thoughts to ponder indeed.

Jerry Lovelady’s collection of poems, Other Worlds, In Other Words, gives words new meanings and makes readers ponder deeply on all aspects of life. The poet begins with his own Author’s Note, describing his thought patterns and what drove him to write the poems in this collection. The poems are written in metered stanzas and free verse as the poet displays a complex pattern of thoughts and perceptions on life and love and what it all means. Using strong metaphors, the poet creates concrete observations that will have readers wanting more, asking more. Life is, after all, full of questions and so empty of answers. His poem, Being Here and Now, begins with the simple, yet challengingly complex lines, “The events which trouble me most/ do not really exist.” How true! How many times have we worried and stewed about something that might happen, or might have happened, and then it doesn’t? This is a fascinating collection of poems that will pull the reader back multiple times to ponder the ideas presented.

Other Worlds, in Other Words is a collection of poetry in the inspirational genre. The poems were written by Jerry Lovelady and are suitable for the general reading audience. The collection mixes a variety of styles whilst focusing on the idea of people reflecting upon things that have happened to them and places they have been. Shifting from subject to subject, the poet uses an intricate web of imagery, vocabulary, and observation to capture the depth of feeling that each subject is experiencing as they recollect the important people, places, and events of their lives.

This is a transcendent collection of poetry that seamlessly shifts the reader through time and space as we learn about the worlds inside people’s memories. By never allowing us to sit still in a single perspective of a situation, Jerry Lovelady forces his readers to consider the complexity of even the smallest moments in our lives. The poet’s skill bounces off each page as playful metaphors and similes for familiar ideas push us to consider the truth of our own memories. The collection had me reflecting on the word ‘Sonder’, which is a moment in which you fully realize and appreciate that every single person you walk past in the street is living a life as vivid and complex as your own. A stranger sat staring into space whilst waiting for a bus could be on an internal journey just like the ones chronicled within the pages of Other Worlds, in Other Words and for that reason the collection should come highly recommended for expanding the worldview of those who read it.