The two places that I learn about poetry are my local library and Half-Price Books. For free, I can browse the poetry section and choose colorful hardcovers and well-worn paperbacks. If the book isn’t for me, it’s no loss. If it is for me, hurrah! The last stack of books that I grabbed included Robert Pinsky’s Gulf Music. While the cover initially attracted me, Pinsky’s writing is virtuosic. He has a dazzling ability to craft word music that concisely yet artfully expresses big ideas. More than once, I said, […]
too many bennies
After a couple of weeks of reading and rereading 272 pages, I am left with a choice of deciding whether I didn’t like this book, it wasn’t good, or it wasn’t for me. In the end, this one probably wasn’t for me. There is a zone where great writing and hard work meet, and in that zone the reader can fully inhabit the atmosphere or world that the writer intended to create. These works are challenging and rewarding. While I’m a casual Kerouac fan, the amount of […]
Challenging Stereotypes: The Crossover
Other than his vibrant use of language, a strong narrative voice, and his realistic portrayal of the speed, heat, and energy of basketball, Kwame Alexander’s The Crossover (2014) is wonderful because it challenges the “single stories” of black life related in many books: It isn’t about impoverished black boys from a single parent female-headed household living in a crime-ridden neighborhood who play basketball to escape. Rather, it is a universal story of growing up, of family, and of love told in narrative verse (poetry). Read the full […]
The Pop-Up Video of Poetry!
In last year’s CBR, I tried to hype National Poetry Month by reviewing several books of poetry. This year, in anticipation of doing the same thing, I bought several new collections of poems and dug out some books from my personal library that I had never gotten around to reading. Sadly, I neglected to notice that April was National Poetry Month. I completely missed it by two months. So, I will have to make my own thirty days of poetry. First up is Gary Soto’s A […]