Friday, June 14, 2013

Review: Drunk Dialing the Divine


We are still talking to Amber Koneval about her collection of poetry. She is a very busy young lady with lots of aspirations.  To recap: She is slated to graduate from Regis University,located in Colorado, in December of 2013 with a double major in English and Religious Studies through the Honors track. She currently has a 3.8 GPA. She comes from a larger, close knit family. This family ‘shamelessly’ promotes her writing.(her words)


What is your book about?
‘Drunk Dialing the Divine’ is a poetry collection that takes the reader through a bit of an overview of the beginning of my faith journey. For me, the biggest obstacle to a complete faith and trust in God has been my anger. Not that it's any kind of petty anger- this is anger about world injustices, anger about violence done to myself, my friends and my family, anger about sins committed in the name of the God I love. For a long time, I convinced myself that the best way to deal with this anger was to ignore it. Through poetic exploration of my own feelings, however, I came to realize that I needed to be honest with myself in order to be honest in my devotion to God; and I needed to be honest in my devotion to be able to be fully invested and connected with Him. So, in short, Drunk Dialing the Divine is an exploration through that anger to a place of peace and resolve, from which I could hope to continue to grow in my faith much more genuinely. My hope is that, by sharing this journey, I will be able to reach out to others who are similarly stuck in their own anger.





 My Review
Amber Koneval has written a collection of avant garde poetry. The poems are in the free-verse style.

Her style is unique to me. She goes deep with her thoughts with each of her poems speaking of God as she sees Him. Her choice of title speaks of the times a person will call out to God and not know why he or she does it. On the back cover, she writes: “Drunk Dialing the Divine is an attempt to capture a glimmer of the emotional struggle of the deeply faithful. Though each poem begins in a negative space, they resist both the angry and the naively optimistic ending—instead finding a ray of hope in the maxim ‘Things are because God is.’”
The following is one of Ms. Koneval’s poems.

Sola Scriptura
It seems like, nowadays,
We take so much pride
In what we don’t know

As if it’s a point of pride
To leave the stars unnamed
To sail the seas with our eyes
Shut, and never touch the water
Because the ignorance
Is preferable
To the awesome knowledge
Of wonder.

Sitting smug, we major in
Not knowing
Filling books with anti-facts
And the statistics of
Emptiness
Harnessing the comforting warmth
Of blindness
To block the harsh glare of awe
Where dumbness would suffice. . .

Is that why we think we can contain
God
In a book? *



Disclaimer: Ms. Koneval contacted me through a professional network and asked if I would be willing to review her collection of poetry.  All she asked was that I give an honest impartial review. I purchased a copy of Drunk Dialing the Divine for myself.

·        Used with permission

2 comments:

  1. The whole 'negative to positive' reminds me a lot of the Psalms.

    So many times, David begins in dispair, and by the end of the song, he has put himself back together in trust with God. Maybe she is intentionally following that?

    So interesting...thank you!

    Peace in Christ,
    Ceil

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you,Ceil, for your observations. I understand her style; I believe you are right in your comparison to the Psalms. Thank you for stooping by.

    ReplyDelete

I would be honored to hear what you think about this.

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