Reviewed by Erin Nicole Cochran for Readers' Favorite

Hugh Dysart's collection, Torn Poems, threads in a professional career as a musician with stances he takes on politics, love, and the state of the world in which we live today. With all that passion, Dysart then creates poetry that conveys a certain authority that demands for us to listen. It is hard not to be spirited about one's own beliefs and he is able to showcase all his thoughts without going too far. There are words used not to be cruel or to reflect a negative viewpoint, but used to get his strong voice across. He rails against the injustices done to many and those we imprison, if not in the flesh then in their minds. Several photographs placed throughout give the collection an added depth.

Lines do sound off in your head, playing like songs trapped inside us. I am suddenly reminded of New Mexico’s unofficial nickname, "Land of Entrapment," and this beautiful sort of entrapment within these pages is welcomed. I have several favorite poems, Skipping On God, Death of a Day, and Where the Dead Men Point, specifically the line “God will bury me himself” and if that doesn’t make love to the tongue when you speak it I don’t know what does. Some titles I feel should be rearranged, because each poem shouts and gets your attention so that even a simple noun repeated in the next poem steals some of the other poem’s shine. I highly recommend Hugh Dysart's Torn Poems if you are a lover of music/poetry or both.