Some books try to guide you step by step, but If I Were a Flower: Poetry, Prose, and Song Lyrics doesn’t move like that. It feels more like something you drift through than something you follow. What makes it stand out is how it blends poetry, prose and song lyrics in a way that doesn’t try to explain everything. It leaves space, and that space ends up doing more work than expected.
Reading it feels quiet, almost disarming at first. Then certain lines start to settle in. I found myself going back and rereading small sections, not because they were complicated, but because they felt familiar in a way I couldn’t quite explain. It doesn’t push you toward a reaction, it lets one show up on its own. At times it feels almost too soft, like you might overlook it if you’re not paying attention, but that softness is part of what gives it weight.
The themes lean into acceptance, emotional honesty, and the idea that even the parts of yourself you usually avoid have something to offer. That idea reaches beyond the book. It connects to how people deal with discomfort, how they try to fix things instead of sitting with them. There’s a quiet shift in perspective here, one that doesn’t announce itself loudly.
Evie Barton writes in a way that feels close to songwriting, which gives the whole book a different rhythm. The repetition doesn’t feel lazy, it feels intentional, like a chorus returning at the right moment. The language stays simple, but it carries more than it first appears to. There isn’t a strong structure pulling everything forward, and that might not work for everyone, but it creates a kind of stillness that feels deliberate.
By the end, it doesn’t leave you with answers. It leaves you with a different way of sitting with your own thoughts. It’s worth reading if you’re open to something quieter, something that doesn’t try to change you directly but shifts how you see what’s already there.
Evie tackles world and personal issues with inspiring honesty and truth. Her words are a testament to the power of finding one’s own voice amidst the echoes of the past. She shares the wisdom of universality and healing rather than conflict and captures the delicate balance of love, tension, and the effort it takes to define oneself independently of family history.
As a listener and reader, I’ve found myself enlightened by her perspective. Her beautiful music will stay with you long after the final note. If I Were a Flower is a guide on how to be authentically yourself. Evie has simply blossomed and is giving “beauty to the world.
Bett Padgett, Award-Winning Songwriter, Teacher, Instrumentalist, and Coach
In a world descending into darkness, Evie Barton’s simple yet stirring poetry, prose, and song lyrics provide a beacon of light, faith, hope, and love. This writing is not cloyingly sweet—there is a depth of understanding, as loving self-awareness is offered as a formula to transform the darkness into light. I am especially engaged by poems like “Hello Dread,” in which a tumor-like childhood trauma is personified and asked by the writer “What would you like me to do for you today?” The entity requests to be held like a frightened child and comforted, and this is the first gentle step in the process of healing—
Once I feel safe and loved,
Who knows, I might pull myself up
Out of this fetal position
Give you a kiss on your cheek,
Say ‘thank you,’
Fly out of you Into the world
Soaring with confidence and curiosity.
There is a good deal of lighter material too, as Evie explores her friendship with nature and the lessons that it teaches. There are affirmations to help get us through our daily lives. And then there is the “Little Black Dog” who came for a week’s foster care and became a long-term partner in love.
Themes of death and loss appear often on these pages, especially in the “Winter” section. Evie does not have all the answers, but faces these experiences with the confidence of faith and the assurance of a loving universe.
Richard Krepski, author of MACROSCOPY (Poetry and Philosophy by RichSki),
,THE MAN WITHOUT A SPECIES (Weird Tales by RichSki), and numerous poems, stories, and essays found online
In her poetry collection If I Were a Flower, Evie Barton thoughtfully reflects on recurring themes of her life. She shows us how she gradually built a philosophy that enabled her to surmount fears and get beyond restrictions that kept her from growing and finding happiness. The poems tell us how she first gained the strength to break free of her mother’s domination and then, through growing love and understanding, was able to be reconciled to her mother as an equal. There is a moving poem of an imagined encounter with the mother:
Mother came to visit
She brought a loaf of bread
She turned around and touched my hand
And this is what she said:
“Child, child,
I know it’s hard to take,
But much of what I taught you
I see was a mistake. . . .”
There are insightful poems about Fear: you must accept that you have fear, she says, but you can move beyond it. There’s a marvelous metaphor of “the uncomfortable place that makes me comfortable…this cupboard of so-called safety.” Evie tells the cupboard, “I choose to expand, to trust, to go out into the world without you.”
The awareness and love of nature is an essential part of the poetry. Evie considers Nature’s point of view: how do the birds agree about when it is safe to return to the bird feeder? And she is guided by Nature: her garden writes her a letter, saying about the invasive plants, “If there’s something growing in me that you don’t want there, it’s up to you to take it out. . . I am a metaphor for your own life. You get to choose what’s in it.” And I love “The Sensible Tulip” who tells her to listen to and trust in her own wisdom, just as the Tulip trusts her own instinct about when to close up tightly for safety and when to open to the Sun. And the Cardinal, who “comes singing” and says “They’re right, you know!/ Open up your voice and heart, let your singing flow!”
And finally there is Evie’s own advice:
“Dance through every Open Door,
Now and Evermore!”
Rosalind Clark, Professor Emerita of English, Saint Mary’s College Indiana