Two Hearts is a Poetry collection by two poets, Sarfaraz Ahmed & Annette Tarpley who are divided by borders but united by verses. There are 124 poems in the anthology, divided into various chapters depending on the theme like, happy, heartache and loss, love and romance, rejection and betrayal, sad, strength and betrayal depending upon the theme. The very first poem in the anthology is Another Night at Ronnie Scott is about a musical concert and the next poem,

The Power of a Mother’s Love is highly emotional poem about motherly love. The poem, The Relinquishing Day seems to be in Wordsworthian style as it is a nature poem with many natural images. As the lines indicates:

As the still of the night relinquishes its hold, to the dawn of a new day
I sit here and marvel at the wonders, the sun reveals and displays
Trees loomed over me at night, ominous figures they appeared to be
Once the day light shined, friendly companions with beautiful leaves

The second chapter comprises of poems on ‘heartache and loss’ leaves a cathartic effect on the readers. All the poems in this section viz, Remnants of You, You’re Tearing Me Apart, Waiting, The Lonely Bench, When You Were Mine, A Mystery Man, You Are Not Around, As I Sleep, Alone, The Spark, Nobody Knew, Violation, How Many Times?, Never To Touch, The Look You Give Me,She Cried a River of Tears, The Mystical Blue, The Good-bye Letter, The Jealousy of Love, The Masquerade and She Had to Let Go are about loss and breaking of heart.

In the Chapter, Love and Romance, there are 47 poems based on romantic theme. Poet has used myriad symbols and metaphors in some poems. In poem, Another Moment, the poet says:

Like flashlights,
We pass each other,
Through the glimmer,
Through the haze,

The Chapter, ‘Rejection and Betrayal’ the first poem, The Pillow depicts domestic violence which many women are facing everyday worldwide. The following lines tell the condition of an abuse woman:

The pillow muffled her screams
Absorbing tears pouring in streams
Years of abuse had been too much
Striking her...she yearned for a gentle touch.
The pillow...a silent witness to what she went through.
Her only ally, it suffered the cruelest view.

Other poems in this chapter; That Night When She Kicked Me Out of Bed, Motherless Child, Lonesome Child and The 1^st Bullet on the themes associated with rejection or betrayal.

In the next chapter, which is based on theme ‘Sad, has ten poems; Strangest of Times, My Melancholy Day, Take Your Knee from My Neck, Insomniac, Ode to Friend, In the Wintery Haze of My Mind, Lockdown Period of 2020, Alone in My House, The Sound of Silence and The Sadness of Clown.

The last chapter, ‘Strength and Confidence’ has 22 powerful poems. In the first poem, I Am Who I Am, the poet, Annette Tarpley is confidently putting forth her opinion about herself and expressing her intention that she doesn’t care about other’s opinion about herself:

I am who I am…I may not be what you want me to be
I am flawed with imperfections, this is my reality
Perhaps once young and beautiful, aesthetics fade with age
One thing I am sure of, wisdom gained, I am filled with sage

There are some collaborative poems written by Sarfaraz Ahmed and Annette Tarpley like, The Longing, The Tango, The Ice Queen, All Alone, The Eccentric and The Shadow of Love.

The poems in the collection are simple and beautiful because both the poet seems to believe that beauty and simplicity can create power and take the audience to a distant place. The motive behind this collaborative poetry collection is that both the poets wanted to give a message to the world that two people belonging to two difficult cultures living in two different countries and continents can come together and work for world peace by the means of poetry.