The pseudonymous Mr. Spice offers odes to women, love, sex — and all the spicy details thereof — in the poetry collection Mr. Spice’s Love Notes.
This book is not for the easily offended. Here, Mr. Spice offers a plethora of double entendres and euphemisms for sexual acts. Some might go so far as to call the work obscene, though the sexual content, while explicit, is usually couched in slang and code words, such as “pleasure honey” and “fire hose.”
The poetry mostly consists of long verses with end rhymes—but without the strict attention to meter that the form usually implies. The content generally spans a narrow range between praising women (or their bodies) and braggadocio-style promises of what the author has done, will do, or wishes to do with them. With over 50 poems treading this ground, the pages begin to feel very similar to one another, distinguished only by the variations of sexual similes and metaphors.
Depending on the reader’s mood, those similes and metaphors will prove provocative — or unintentionally amusing. Lines such as this one can strike either way: “Let me tickle your tummy from the inside/Orgasmic apex of your pelvic aperture, [sic] will give my skin a ride.” There are moments, however, that hint at deeper and more serious intent, such as: “All women can be as a swan, though labeled as target for a geek/ While critics shun respecting her, yet support her to be a freak…”
The language and subject matter here is not the stuff of typical poetry, and the work doesn’t always flow smoothly, with words sometimes awkwardly positioned, added, or cropped for the sake of the end rhymes.
Overall, the book’s audience is limited by the nature of its contents. Readers who like this sort of thing—titillating, fun, raw at times— will find Mr. Spice’s Love Notes mostly engaging, if not exactly skilled poetry, while others should look elsewhere for their poetry fix.
Also available in hardcover and ebook.
