“Archery In The UK Doesn’t Seem To Be Done With Me–A Book Review” by Selma Martin

In late January, I preordered Archery In The UK, by Nick Reeves and Ingrid Wilson read it over the weekend and was just in time to post my honest review on Amazon when the book launched on February 01st.

At the same time, I also conveyed my thoughts to the audience that follows my blog, singing the book’s praises.

And while my review is genuine, I’ve come to realize I have more to say about this gorgeous slim book of lyrical ballads. Please indulge me with an addendum to my initial review, as I’ve added a third reason why this book is appropriately well-timed for the times we’re living in.

As I told a prospective Amazon audience and other bloggers, Archery In The UK curled my toes. Get this book– it will help you soften the rough edges, curl your toes and remind you what pure love looks like.

** …it will even have you hearing Beethoven or cooing a cathedral chime **

** …if you have clumpy and jaded ideas about love, this collection will help aspirate those hardened ideas and renew you to love’s purer meaning **

** …otherwise, you’ll find yourself InJoy with love all over again **

The timing of this book, Archery In The UK, by Nick Reeves and Ingrid Wilson, couldn’t have been better. This one hit the mark for me in more ways than one.

Firstly, this book is the perfect gift for your significant other– guaranteed!
Valentine’s or any memorable day of the year. I was enamored with every word on every page and believe romantics worldwide will feel the same. 

Authors Reeves and Wilson are my new faves. Taking up the title of archery, I imagined Cupid. All the poems are odes to that most awe-inducing state we know as love.

The word choices are of love that any knowing soul understands. And the brevity of each poem is transformative and grounding. Take, for example, the shortest poem of them all– it hit its mark; it epitomizes love to me. I quote from the book: 

Beauty drew the archer’s eye; absolutely true. /
“To this woman,” bade the bowman. How the arrow flew! /
As a vesper, as a whisper; diaphanous, and blue /
as Venus rising in the window; under waxing moon./ 
HOW THE ARROW FLEW

Secondly, the loveliness of painting for me, an image of so much care. The rooms are clean and scented; the bed is made– clean sheets: Cotton from Cairo to Carlisle. The act of making something so extraordinary meld with the ordinaryness of love (so ordinary as it’s available to anyone)– it ensconced me, literally, in the middle of each poem. 

And vows: I dos and I wills, couplehood/marriage, honeymoon, the mornings after lovemaking! I’d never read anything like this, which spoke to my perhaps antiquated feeling about the holy union of marriage.

I’m trying to say that if you have clumpy and jaded ideas about love, Archery In kThe UK by Nick Reeves and Ingrid Wilson will help aspirate those hardened ideas.
This poetry collection will renew you to love’s purer meaning.

… where never sin, nor pain, nor wrong could be:/ BIRDSONG

Aww, love. That aspect is what spoke to me the strongest. This book has me In Joy with love. 

Please add this book to your collection, dear people, and then wait to see how you hear Beethoven or coo a cathedral chime./ pg.37/ pg.43.

And now on to my third reason: In a world that sometimes looks for answers in all the wrong places, places that commercialize and glamorize a semblance of love– adult love into one bracket only and with the same narrative: love as a carnal affair/adult love as R-rated– this gorgeous little book of modern, lyrical ballads is a pioneer in helping to change the misguided projection we’ve been fed about what love is NOT.

That one book with sixty-eight short poems could do that for the younger generation is an ambitious notion, but it’s also a good start. I want to bet that it could work to uncover the core merits that love provides us through the spirit– not the outer human carnage that has very little to do with pure love.

It is my heartfelt hope that adding this third reason for a universal audience here at MasticadoresUSA, Archery In The UK, by Nick Reeves and Ingrid Wilson, will reach a bigger audience and do what I believe this book can do: redeem us all of the many misconceptions of pure adult love. I rest my case.

Copyright © 2023 Selma Martin
All Rights Reserved

Selma Martin is a retired English teacher with 20 years of teaching children ESL. She believes in people’s goodness and in finding balance in simple living. She lives in Japan with her husband. In 2018, Selma participated in a networking course whose final lesson was to publish a story on Amazon. After many failed attempts, she completed the course and self-published her short story, Wanted: Husband/Handyman, in 2019. Later, collaborating with peers from that course, she published Wanted: Husband/Handyman in an anthology, Once Upon A Story: A Short Fiction Anthology. Since then, she has published stories in MasticadoresUSA and in Spillwords. After her first NaPoWriMo 2021, Selma writes poetry on her website, selmamartin.com, and is struggling to garner the courage to publish a book soon. You can find Selma, selmawrites, on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. 

Featured Image: The book cover for Archery in the UK

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