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The Creep by Chriselda Barretto is an interesting and original idea of its kind epic poem featuring a horrific monster dubbed by Barretto as the “Creep” that resembles the Greek monster, Medusa that comes to people through their dreams. It does not have a given name just that it is a creepy demon that only a certain little boy is destined to send back to wherever diabolical place it originated from. This is a new form of poetry book that is labeled as a thriller on Amazon’s website. It is similar to the Greek greats The Odyssey and The Iliad in that it tells a story through a narrator and this book is inspired by the Christian story of the villainous satan that was banished from heaven and is said to be on earth to wreak havoc only to be destroyed by the Lord Almighty’s son Jesus Christ. So I guess it’s safe to say that this book has a universal appeal to all those who are aware of Christ and His enemy satan.
This book is short and concise, the poetic lines are not lengthy but are rightfully brief and simple. It is written in a sort of way by Barretto to probably let each line rhyme and go smoothly with each other as a whole in order to be read poetically by avid readers of poetry books. I found no faults within this book except that to the amateur poetry reader, he or she may find the rhythm to be off-putting but as a poet myself, I can say that it is for the words’ syllables and consonants to flow rhythmically. I finished this book in two days but could have been shorter if I wasn’t too tired from the Halloween craze of two days ago.
I suggest this book to those die-hard fans of poetry who may love a new poetic theme, in this case, the horror genre because in all my years on this earth the only horrific kind of poetry book I’ve read was Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven and Other Poems and that’s about it. Barretto has sparked an interest in me for scary-themed poems and for epic poetry as well. Good luck to the author and her writing career and to everyone reading this book, try it out and see if it fancies you. I think a collector of poetry books should add this rare gem to his or her library. I think Barretto’s work here has made me feel like I should search for more book-length epic poems with all sorts of themes ranging from horror to suspense to romance of course to entertain me during this upcoming magical season of winter. God bless!