Coming Home to Myself, by Marion Woodman

The subtitle says "Reflections for Nurturing a Woman's Body and Soul". That's accurate, as the words in the compilation of poems inside this little book encourage the female reader to be both more forgiving and much harder on oneself than the average person would generally be. She should be forgiving when others judge her too harshly, in worship of a false sense of perfection. Yet she must push herself harder to find out what she really wants, because soul searching is actually the most emotionally painful work a human being will ever do, short of stubbornly holding onto grief or unrequited love.

The cover also says "Marion Woodman with Jill Mellick". While one woman wrote all the poems, the other woman interviewed and analyzed them, taking them apart so as to choose the best and the most relevant for the messages that they both want to convey. There are blue watercolor pictures between all the chapters, perhaps as a meditation on how the soul can be like a body of water, flowing and deep and mysterious.

Each poem uses a lot of symbolism. They are drawn from mythology, drawn from the author's dreams, and can be as simple as two lines, or can be almost a prose poem, going on for three pages about a scenario involving more than one person. Everyone is intertwined, and that is very scary when not all goes well.

My favorite part of this work in its entirety is its tone. It's so very comforting. It's like if someone were to hold me, wearing soft warm cotton, in a friendly way with words. Some may argue that it is a bit preachy, but I don't mind it so much if it's in verse, open to a trillion interpretations, reaching across every culture. It captures the depth of a woman if she looks within hard enough.

Review for Hip Logic, by Terrance Hayes

The words feel vibrant off the page. A reader can definitely hear the rhythm and beat of Hayes' lines of poetry in her head. This is a quick, powerful read, full of word play and melodies that reminded me of the jazz and blues songs from the Harlem Renaissance. There was a lot of metaphor though little to no simile, and the imagery was more than compelling. Some alliteration was thrown around, but I'm guessing that Hayes wasn't a fan of that particular poetic device - each poet has personal preferences, after all. There was only one instance in which Hayes played with the way words were spaced out on the page excessively; almost everything else could have been read out loud and performed.

Because Hayes is a minority in America - and I so relate to this - cultural heritage was a theme. Since he is an African American man, there were definite ideas of what being a man is like, or perhaps even should be like. (I didn't say I agreed with these ideas.) Because race and diversity are a continuing aspect of the lives of everyone who is not white and do not feel treated equally in this country, I had a few expectations about the tone and content of literary works like that since early college, and in regards to this poetry, since the first half of the book. I was far more intrigued by the unknown: the themes of fatherhood and loss in the other poems.

The poet wrote tenderly about every child and woman he narrated. You can feel their presence, hear their breaths. His parental figures were certainly a strong influence on his poems - I also relate to this. I appreciated the sense of humor and irony he presented behind his verse. I enjoyed for the most part the play on meanings - public and private - in the two sections labeled "A Gram of &s" but felt that his game was odd and the words were too selective: only a personal preference.

A good read for most modern readers, I would say. This book of poetry is the antithesis to any of the old fashioned European nostalgic and mimic nature type poems, because the lines are short, a bit slappy and sometimes angry. What nostalgia remained came off to me as rueful. While a boon to readers who appreciate a forceful voice and fastpaced rhythm, the book of poetry is probably not for those who read poetry for the wistful kind of pathos that poets like E. E. Cummings would provide.

Review for Evidence of Red, by Leanne Howe

Evidence of Red is a powerful literary commentary on a part of American history that most history classes just tend to gloss over: the wars for land between the colonists and the Native Americans, and the tribal politics underneath that bigger conflict. What struck me most about the poetry was the vivid imagery and compelling emotions, ranging from bitter irony to blooming rage. The prose caught me off guard with its powerful voice and detailed satirical narrative. Leanne Howe tells readers exactly what she thinks of monotheistic religion, the wars between the different denominations, and the American government's treatment of the American Indian peoples.

She makes fun of everything we think we know about the Native Americans - how connected with nature we think they are, the way we display their ways of life in museums, and concocts two caricatures of the typical depictions of Native Americans: the noble savage and the Indian mascot. A lot of symbolism is also evoked within her short plays, and they illuminate her perspectives on her identity and heritage. The rhythm of the words is fairly erratic, with a new pace for each piece, and that keeps a person reading. There is also a subtext of gender issues written about here, given the number of times that female characters appear, but I can't be certain whether that part is just my overanalysis.

The words that she incorporates from her native tongue are disorienting at first, but once I got used to it, it seems as though all the English words revolve around them. Her descriptions of family and who is related to who in some essays - or prose poetry, it seems hard to classify - are disorienting as well, but that is because I am not familiar with the way Native American culture thinks about family. Most of the concepts, culture, emotions and almost everything in this book would feel new to the average American poetry reader.

I recommend this book to just about everyone, precisely because her words and stories are so disorienting. I feel that everyone must get a taste of her perspective and powerful storytelling, because she spits on the patriotic sentiment that many Americans take for granted. The common reader should read this book to remember the worst that the American government can do, beyond having a faulty intelligence that led the nation into war. This is a history that the public schools and our educational system only gloss over, but a history that the author and her people live with everyday.