Review of "Bridges of Words" by Esperanza Pretila

Score: 95/100 (9.5 out of 10)

Bridges of Words is a very unique and special poetry book by Esperanza Pretila!

Bridges of Words is one of those rare poetry projects that feels both huge and tiny at the same time. Huge in scope, tiny in form. It tries to bottle whole nations inside three short lines at a time, then invites you to walk across those bottles like stepping stones. You are not just “reading poems about countries.” You are moving from Golden Gate to Taj Mahal to Sydney Harbour Bridge to Tower Bridge, carried along by rivers of image and sound.

From the opening dedication and introduction, it is clear that this is a book about connection as a lifelong calling, not just a clever concept. The framing prose talks about words as bridges, haiku as “windows” into cultures, and poetry as something that does not lecture but listens. That idea becomes the guiding metaphor of the entire collection. The photos of famous landmarks and bridges in monochrome behind each section extend that metaphor visually, turning the book into a hybrid of travel album and global prayer.

Formally, these are not strict 5–7–5 classroom haiku so much as haiku-inspired mini sequences. Most countries get a cluster of short three-line poems, each one focusing on a different facet of place: geography, history, food, music, faith, or struggle. The recurring three-line structure still preserves the “single breath” feeling of haiku, but the book uses sequence and repetition to create a longer musical line that runs through the whole project.

Sound is one of this collection’s strongest qualities. Even before you unpack meaning, the alliteration, assonance, and internal rhyme do a lot of the lifting. “Maple melodies,” “Merlion melodies,” “Baltic breezes,” “Safari Serenade,” “Samba of Souls,” “Celtic Connections,” “Nordic Nights,” “Viennese Verse,” “Balkan Ballads,” “Brussels Ballads,” “Orinoco Odes,” “Archipelago Anthem” and “Abyssinian Anthem” are practically tiny poems just in their titles. The repeated m, s, b, and n sounds give each region its own little sonic logo. Those phrases feel like taglines you could put on postcards or tourism posters, but they also function as alliterative anchors around which each sequence is built.

Anaphora and parallelism are used deliberately and consistently. Many stanzas begin with “In…,” “Through…,” “Amidst…,” or “Beneath…,” creating a grounded sense of place and movement: “In plaza’s embrace…,” “In the bush and beach…,” “Through seasons of change…,” “Through struggle and strife…,” “Amidst palm tree groves…,” “Amidst Viking lore…,” “Through ancient ruins…,” “Through time’s shifting sands….” Each repeated preposition acts like a drumbeat. You feel the poem stepping through landscapes and histories in a steady rhythm. That repetition is both a strength and, at times, a limitation. When it works, it gives the book strong cohesion and a chant-like cadence. When it is overused, some countries start to blend into each other in tone.

Pretila leans heavily on a shared symbolic vocabulary: rivers, winds, songs, heartbeats, souls, legacies, lights, and bridges. Almost every country has a river that carries stories (“Ganga’s gentle flow,” the Nile, the Mekong, the Orinoco), a wind that whispers, or a song that embodies its people. Water becomes the dominant global symbol. Rivers are “lifeblood,” “pulse,” or “lifeline,” and seas “embrace” coastlines. This is textbook personification applied at scale: natural features are not just scenery, they are active storytellers and carriers of memory.

Bridges, of course, are the core metaphor. Even when an actual bridge is not mentioned, the poems describe words, songs, or tales “binding hearts as one,” “weaving unity,” or “connecting souls deep.” The idea of verse as infrastructure runs through everything. A mariachi band becomes a “serenade of solidarity,” samba rhythms become a “samba of souls,” fado becomes a vessel for national unity, and Celtic folklore becomes “connections” rather than just entertainment. The metaphors keep translating intangible cultural expressions into tangible architecture: songs are bridges, tales are threads, poems are fabrics, sunsets are crowns.

One of the nice subtleties is how each region’s imagery is tailored. Australia gets the kookaburra and eucalypts; India gets lotus, spices, mangoes, and the Ganga; Japan gets sakura petals and temple gardens; Kenya gets lions, zebras, and acacia silhouettes; Nepal gets prayer flags and monasteries perched on cliffs; Argentina gets tango, gauchos, and pampas; New Zealand gets geysers, fantasy landscapes, and the Kiwi’s call; the Philippines is the “Pearl of the Orient,” shining through storms. None of these are obscure symbols, but arranging them into gentle, haiku-like miniatures gives them a quiet freshness.

If you are reading this collection as a craft exercise, it becomes a catalog of poetic devices in accessible form:
- Metaphors and similes: Nations are “pearls,” “crowns,” “hearts,” “souls,” “lungs,” and “jewels.” Rivers are “lifeblood” or “pulse.” The Baltic is a “sanctuary.” Tango is Argentina’s soul; samba is Brazil’s heartbeat. Those metaphors are direct and clear, ideal for readers who are learning to identify figurative language. There are fewer explicit similes (“like” or “as”) than metaphors, which suits the compressed haiku style.

- Personification: Landscapes and landmarks constantly act, speak, and feel. The Eiffel Tower “whispers” and “sings of hope.” The Great Wall “witnesses” history. Nordic nights “whisper secrets.” Maple leaves “whisper melodies,” deserts “sigh,” and Atlantic waves “echo.” This personification makes the book feel almost like a global chorus of nonhuman narrators.

- Alliteration: As noted, the alliterative titles are standouts. Inside the stanzas, you get smaller strings like “snow-capped peaks,” “sun-kissed sand,” “Baltic breezes,” “desert dunes,” “fiery dance,” “gentle flow.” These give the lines a mouthfeel that young readers, especially, could latch onto.

- Anaphora and parallelism: Repeated openings such as “Through…,” “In…,” and “Amidst…” give the lines a sermonlike cadence. In some countries, it almost reads like a litany: one image after another, each beginning with the same word, each layering another aspect of identity or resilience.

- Idiomatic language: Phrases like “heart beats,” “spirit sings,” “soul rises,” “timeless charm,” and “rises strong” draw from familiar English idioms about identity and endurance. That makes the book extremely approachable to ESL readers or younger students who are still getting comfortable with figurative speech.

Where the craft shines brightest is in the moments where specificity, sound, and symbol lock together. “Kookaburra’s laugh / echoes through the eucalypts” is a lovely little snapshot of Australia. The image of prayer flags “whispering” on the wind in Nepal, or Angel Falls tumbling from “heaven’s heights” in Venezuela, compresses postcard scenery into something closer to a spiritual icon.

The emotional throughline is simple but sincere: cultures are different in color and texture, yet united by shared longings for belonging, resilience, and harmony. There is almost no cynicism in this book. Conflict, oppression, or political tension are largely absent; what we see instead are mountains, rivers, cities, music, food, and festivals offered as points of pride and connection.

At first glance, that might sound overly idealistic, but in context it feels like a conscious choice. The book wants to function as a bridge of empathy, not a textbook of geopolitics. By repeatedly pairing each nation with images of heart, soul, song, and legacy, it nudges the reader to approach other cultures as living, feeling presences rather than abstract headlines. This is especially clear in places like Bangladesh and Uganda, where natural disasters and historical trauma are acknowledged briefly, but the emphasis lands on resilience and renewal rather than suffering alone.

The closing prose reflection about whether seventeen syllables can “carry the soul of a nation” frames the whole enterprise with humility. The book does not pretend that it has captured each culture fully. Instead, it presents each poem as an “impression,” a “moment,” and invites readers to let those moments awaken curiosity and empathy. In that sense, Bridges of Words might be most powerful as a starting point: a set of poetic doorways into deeper exploration

From a craft perspective, the main weaknesses are tied to the same choices that make the book accessible. Because unity, heart, soul, and legacy are repeated so often, the emotional palette sometimes feels narrow. The repetition of stock phrases like “heart beats,” “spirit strong,” “beauty knows no bounds,” or “legacy endures” across dozens of countries can flatten the distinctiveness of individual sections. A few lines slip into almost travel-brochure language, which slightly undercuts the haiku ideal of fresh, concrete imagery.

Readers who are strict about haiku form might also bristle at how freely the book treats syllable counts and seasonal markers. This is very much haiku in spirit rather than in classical technique. You will not find sharp, Zen-like juxtapositions or surprising cuts; the poems are descriptive, reverent, and sometimes didactic. For many general readers, that will be a feature rather than a bug, but poets expecting formal rigor might see it as a missed opportunity.

There are also a few small proofreading slips and occasional awkward wordings that momentarily jar the flow. Given the size of the project and its global scope, those feel minor, but they are noticeable to close readers.

Here are a few minor errors we found:

1. A double period at the end of a line
In the North Macedonia section:

“North Macedonia's peace..”

That extra period is a straightforward proofreading slip. It is tiny, but on the page it pops out and briefly distracts from an otherwise lovely image of Lake Ohrid.

2. An awkward comma after “to” in the Portugal / fado section
In the Portugal sequence:

“From Porto's shores to,
Algarve's sun-kissed beaches, hear
Fado's unity.”

The comma right after “to” is grammatically odd and makes the line stumble when read aloud. Something like “From Porto’s shores to Algarve’s sun-kissed beaches” would flow more smoothly.

3. Slightly awkward phrasing in the dedication prose in the dedication to Nanay:

“helped me in bagging a singing contest prize at the age of seven”
“Helped me in bagging” is understandable, but reads a bit clunky in polished prose. Something like “helped me win a singing contest at the age of seven” would feel smoother and more natural.

Maybe we should close with this: the poetry is exceptional. What's also exceptional are these lovely photos of these landmarks from around the world!

This gives us two very strong points of comparison between this book and its direct competition in this contest (Exploring Beauty with Photographer Samantha Moller Lopez, Volume 1 by Samantha Moller Lopez, Dow Creative Enterprises with Poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson). The poems are original, arguably better applied to the photographs, and the photography is top-notch!

Check it out on Amazon!