Battle Scars by John Bennett

Battle Scars

by John Bennett
Kamini Press, Stockholm,Sweden
Softbound, Copyright © 2010 by John Bennett
ISBN 978-91-977437-5-4

Review by Zvi A. Sesling

The second poem in John Bennett’s 40th book, Battle Scars, is three simple lines under the title Trust “Don’t trust/cause-oriented/people.”

In another poem, Mirrors Bennett writes:

After a
certain age
all mirrors are
good for is
checking for
skin cancer &
the nicotine
stain in
your mustache


And in another titled Lacking he notes:

We will
not do
what we
need to
do to
save ourselves.

We do not
have it
in us.

Bennett is obviously a man of few words, but words that pack a wallop, fraught
with meaning, an arrow to whatever gets you thinking, whatever causes an emotion
in you. He can take a thought, or a cliche and make into an aphorism. The titles let
you know he is not messing around, that he is an in-your-face kinda guy: Ego Like Indelible Ink, Reading Tea Leaves, Diminishing Returns, Battle Scars, Less Is More,
and plenty of others.

I admire Bennett’s ability to boil down what could be a seemingly endless poem into
six or eight lines and instead of leaving the reader confused or wondering what he said,
he makes direct contact and you say, “Oh, yah!”

If you want a book that you can easily relate to and have it small enough to carry in a
pocket or pocketbook, then this is definitely for you. By the way, keep close at hand
to keep you out of trouble.