Nothing To Write Home About
sun memos is a book of modern free verse poetry, written by Australian folk-pop artist, Ziggy Alberts.
Let me start with the positive. The book itself is lovely, it has a nice feel in the hand. I love a well printed book, and this one is very nice. I had thought that it was from a small independent-ish publishing company, and although that is true, on further investigation I have realised that the company was started by Ziggy himself, and has only published his books. This doesn't effect how nice the book is, but it does change how I feel about it; an independent publisher often denotes creativity, quality and interest, whereas an elaborately self-published book speaks to me of a vanity project.
On to the actual content of the book.
To be perfectly frank, it's fine. This small book, filled with little notes to self and diary excerpts show glimpses into the mind of a person. It doesn't really matter which person, because most of the revelations and explorations are universal and simplistic. There is little artistry in the arrangement of the thoughts and words, yet the bare lines lack the profound minimalism sometimes found in similarly marketed collections.
My conclusion on finishing this book was that there is nothing wrong with the words, yet they were not worth sharing in this way. I'm glad that Ziggy is having significant thoughts and feelings, and that he so successfully puts those into his songs. I hope he sticks with songwriting in the future.
