by DEBORAH BACHARACH Pamela Sneed, Funeral Diva (City Lights Books, 2020), p. 148. Pamela Sneed is a Black lesbian scholar, activist, poet, historian, and professor, and she brings all this expertise to Funeral Diva, her new cross-genre book. The first two … Read more
by JESSICA CORY Natalie Diaz, Postcolonial Love Poem (Graywolf Press, 2020). pp. 120 pages. “My brother has a knife in his hand. / He has decided to stab my father,” read the opening lines of the collection’s second poem, “Blood-Light.” … Read more
Lanny is depicted as untainted by the moral failings of the adults around him. As a child, his purity is precarious—not only because he will grow up, but because his childishness makes him vulnerable to those who might prey on goodness.
In each story, rural China grates against urbanization. Tradition grates against technology, and poverty grates against new wealth.
The poems move between both the urgency and complacency of living in a world which is being destroyed by our way of life.
The rhythm of this collection is in the arrangement of its stories which moves like a revolving door between past and present.
by PROSPER ALBRIGHT Lindsey Warren, Archangel & The Overlooked (Spuyten Duyvil, 2020), pp. 45. Like John Keats, Lindsey Warren knows that the task of the poet is to construct a temple in thought, “the wreath’d trellis of a working brain,” … Read more
Appel’s skill is in crafting beautiful, tender moments that stand alone in their stories, and though they may not be logical or entirely practical, these moments are undeniably human.
The collection of four somewhat thematic, loosely chronological sections illustrates not only the development of a powerful anti-colonial voice, but the hidden glories and tragedies and silent shames of colonial and postcolonial Kenya.
The guide can only take you so far. Lewis demands the reader act.
