Letters To Jupiter – Poetry Book Review

Who doesn’t love simple poetry that reminds you of things the mind often ponders over when it finds the time to breathe alone?

“Letters To Jupiter” by Lotte Jean is a collection of poetry that descends into the internal turmoils of both the heart and body. It’s easy to read and doesn’t leave you scratching your head over cryptic lines that some poets take pleasure in penning down. That doesn’t mean Jean does not indulge in witticism and hidden meanings in this collection. A few things might be lost on readers who aren’t familiar with classics. For example, there is a poem that is inspired by a wildly popular Oscar Wilde story. If you haven’t read Wilde, you won’t get it.

The dominant theme through the book is self-love, although the Jean does delve into other issues, like existentialism, toxic relationships & broken families. I really enjoyed the ones that seemed more personal and had elements from nature interspersed with the individual’s growth. The one titled ‘The Day I Lost The Sun & Saw The Moon’ was short but beautiful to read. Here are some of the first few lines –

take me to the river’s edge
let my soul
merge with the stream
and taste a reality
far different from my own
an ether of merging thoughts
of clarity
and
madness
moulding together.

Lotte Jean

Most of the poetry is free-style and there is no fixed metre or pattern to them. Some of them are very short, just one sentence spaced into a poem, the kinds that I like to label ‘insta poetry’, which I am not very fond of. But I’ve mentioned in an older poetry book review about how I am starkly aware of the popularity of such poems. So I think a lot of modern readers would enjoy them. Also, few of the poems are slightly repetitive and you’ll keep spotting the words ‘acid’, ‘fire’, ‘burn’ a lot.

Overall, ‘Letters to Jupiter’ is a lovely collection and is all about youth, despair, love and self-discovery. Read them a few times and you’ll get finding newer/deeper meanings to some of them.