The Love Scrolls

POETRY

The Love Scrolls:
The Unsearchable Title
Edward Theodore Hayes
1st Books
112 pages
Softcover $9.95
978-0-7596-7912-2
Two Stars (out of Five)

By day, Edward Theodore Hayes of Brussels, Belgium, works as a retail manager in a national department store. Otherwise, he toils diligently as a poet, having authored four books in the Love Scroll series. This slim volume, The Unsearchable Title, is the second in the series. The book is an admirable feat of its kind, flaws and all, and holds appeal for readers with a penchant for the form, structure, and trappings of the classical literary ballad, but with variations.

The classical story and tone emanate from the references to Greek mythology (Pegasus, Eos, Helios, even Sheol as Hades or Hell) and the struggle of a Knight to overcome forces of evil, win the heart of a fair maiden, and find God on earth and throughout the universe. The epic searches are recounted in seven aptly titled scrolls, each containing seven poems. Most of the poems are composed of rhyming quatrains, except for the rhyming couplets that end most of the forty-nine poems. The metre however is much freer, but with this freedom comes stumbles of verbiage, such as: “And here we reside where all our dreams come true, your dream of a Knight in shining armour coming to your rescue, / And my dream that has come true, of being that Knight in shining armour that comes to rescue you.”

Sometimes, as well, a reached-for rhyme jars, as in “Tranquility,” with its eight end-line rhymes of are/far/scar/afar/bar/thar/insofar/star. The discordance of “thar” as a variation for “there” occurs elsewhere as well. One poem’s title, “Love is Gonna Win,” is too colloquial for the overall tone of the collection, while the title, “Flight of a Knight,” is too flip. The latter, however, can also be seen as an example of Hayes’ humour which takes full and fanciful flight in the poems, “Bridal” and “Unbridled,” with their pun on “bridal” and “bridle.” The title of the final poem in the book, “A Knight’s Midsummer Dream” is a clever play, too, on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

While there are lighter and lyrical poems such as “Picnic” and “Sunny Day’s Revenge,” others such as “Three Siblings” contain such serious thoughts as: “When in the final battle of good and evil and all the stars of heaven fall, / They shall be sharers to inherit a new earth and heaven and all.” And in “Shared Vision” readers are asked to consider: “Don’t you know that it is this way faith throughout the earth will be restored? / It is such visions and dreams as this that shall awaken mankind to the coming of the Lord.”

There is energy and emotion in these poems but they are best read in single doses to offset the repetitive constraints of a frequently forced rhyme that inhibits the flow of truly imaginative concepts and the natural rhythm of the language. The poetic potential is there; it needs to be released.
M. Wayne Cunningham

The Love Scrolls:
The Unsearchable Title
Edward Theodore Hayes

1st Books/Authorhouse

Thanks for the review Mr. Cunningham. Let's correct some facts before we share this review. First, I reside in Clinton Township, New Jersey and have lived in New Jersey all my life. I studied economics at Drew University and spent a semester studying in Brussels, Belgium.

The title of the work is The Unsearchable Title and it was the second book printed but my fourth book I wrote. You mention the volume is "slim" but this is not a poetry book that contains 5-10 line poems that take up whole pages. These pages are filled with up to 30 lines of poetry and the total number of lines in the work is nearly 3500, while word count approaches 20,000.

You call the book "an admirable feat of its kind" and I do agree, but give it 2 out of 5 stars. The story itself is part of a larger series and to be fair we can't read Harry Potter # 4 and rate that work without considering the previous books in context to the larger series. Yet if this work seems to stand alone, then that goal has been achieved, it is not necessary to read the other books to appreciate or understand The Unsearchable Title, but reading the other works will give it better context.

While it is a book of poetry with forty-nine poems, each meant to stand alone, it is also, at once an epic tale in a book series. So this work is unique in that you are free to roam and explore any book and any poem in a book at any level of understanding. Books of poetry will be considered for their best poems and most memorable lines, I think there are many truly memorable lines and poems in this work, weather considered in context to, or apart from this beautiful story in the greater series.

Finally you said the book has "flaws" without expanding on what you meant. What you are reading is the pre-edited version and a new version of both the hard and soft cover will be released soon. Also the soft cover book you read will get a new and beautiful cover closer to the hard cover version and will grow to 6x9 in size. This book will be joined by six other books of The Love Scrolls series that will be released together shortly, along with an eighth book, an Anthology of these seven books (with 345 poems) - in order of their writing.

I invite you Mr. Cunningham to review any and all of these books and as you suggest, "the poetic potential is there; it needs to be released", well I assure you it will be released shortly. And as for those that have the soon to be ancient first editions I say...

"I am not interested in the Queen's English, I am interested in the language of my King."

and I say to all that may want to indulge in this epic, do behold...

"As Shakespeare shall write of his kings, so I shall write of mine."

Dear Edward,
Thank you for your marvelous contribution to our ministry. Your poetry is God inspired and a blessing to all who hear it. The scrolls were so beautiful. Each one who received it were impressed. God bless you and continue to inspire you.