by Alicia G. Smith-Mackall ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 27, 2016
Fans of the previous collection will warm to this one’s subject matter, although some of the prose seems amateurish.
Smith-Mackall’s second book of poetry continues to explore her faith and identity.
Like the author’s first collection, this one explores her relationships with faith and family. It also ventures down new avenues with themes of betrayal, broken promises, forgiveness and time, and the breadth of her subjects is impressive. Her faith buoys her throughout each of life’s challenges, yet her most successful poems are those that address issues of identity as something beyond faith. However, some verses from her first collection, such as “What is a Negro?” and “I am a Negro,” show more heart and social relevance than many of those here. For example, she strives unsuccessfully for a similar honesty and spirit in “We All Have a Voice,” apparently inspired by Maya Angelou. Smith-Mackall notes her inspirations, but they aren’t well-articulated in the poems; for example, “Piece by Piece” is inspired by Kelly Clarkson’s music, and although ekphrasis (graphically describing a work of art) is a compelling technique, readers unfamiliar with the titular song will gain no insight into its importance. Often, the poems waver between being too generic (“Beginnings are just what they are— / The start of something new”) or too personal—not by revealing too much, but by being esoteric. Many pieces evoke emotion, but they would have benefited from more metaphor and imagery, rather than staid overexplanation. Too often, the last line of each poem is also the title, and the elementary rhyming is also a letdown. Smith-Mackall is a more natural songwriter than poet; some poems are explicitly labeled as songs and include choruses and rhymes that work. She also writes powerful prayers: “Lord, Thank You,” for example, is strong in its simplicity and earnestness, and it doesn’t use rhyme as a crutch.
Fans of the previous collection will warm to this one’s subject matter, although some of the prose seems amateurish.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5246-4212-9
Page Count: 176
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by J.C. Salazar ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2018
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.
A collection speaks in part to the poet’s Mexican-American heritage.
In these multifaceted poems, Mexico-born, Houston-raised Salazar (Of Dreams and Thorns, 2017) explores general human themes like love and war in addition to specific experiences as a person of color. The book begins with a sensual meditation on desire, featuring luscious descriptions of a lover, from lips “moist like youth” to the body’s “softest velvet” slopes. The poems shift to odes to cultural icons like the Tejano star Selena and Mexican-German painter Frida Kahlo as well as occasion pieces honoring his brother’s 40th birthday and a friend’s mother’s memorial service. The author hits his stride when he delves into identity. In “I Am Not Brown,” he contemplates the societal implications of skin tone and his inability to fit into the rigid category of Caucasian or Latino. “For white and black and brown alike / Are slaves to history’s brush strokes,” he writes. “Grateful for the Work,” perhaps Salazar’s loveliest poem, catalogs the day of a laborer, starting with an early morning awakening and following him as he toils in 100-degree heat, enjoys tacos from his lunch pail, buys beverages from a child’s lemonade stand, and returns home to an equally hard-working wife. The author then makes an abrupt turn toward Syria in a series of poems that condemn that country’s president, Bashar Hafez al-Assad. They serve as a rallying cry for Syrians and grieve for the murdered masses. Salazar’s closing poem, “Sons of Bitches,” is a clunky rant about a 20-year-old immigrant shot in the head by a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent. The gratuitous violence and political theologizing are ill at ease with the intimate, personal experiences that preceded them, such as the fablelike “A Mexican is Made of This,” in which Salazar beautifully describes the “rainbows, bronze, backbone, butterflies” that his people embody.
A volume of poetry that shines when focused on the author’s experiences of race and culture.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9991496-3-8
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Bronze Diamond Productions
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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BOOK REVIEW
by J.C. Salazar
by Kate Lee Diehl illustrated by Kathryn Dimenichi John Powell ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2015
Poems and images that ask readers to appreciate a searching body for its beauty and grace.
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Diehl’s debut poetry collection showcases the arduous search for human connection and self-understanding.
In free verse poems that combine strong metaphors with prosaic passages, the poet wanders along a lifelong path of self-knowledge. She first describes it as a “pilgrimage…to accept what’s been deemed unworthy inside us,” and the trail leads to important insights. In a plainly stated yet necessary reminder, the author asserts that being human, despite the loneliness one may encounter, “is not a solitary pursuit.” Above all else, the book voices a desire for transparency in the self and in others. In “Clear Stream,” moving water illuminates objects within it, even as mystery waits at the bottom, and the water’s clarity corresponds to the speaker’s offering of his- or herself to view: “Here I am. // Come see me if you want.” Sometimes the tumble of words in these short stanzas suggests a pouring forth of injury: “It’s the show-stopping blow of loss upending a heart pain over pain till capacity for love regulates its beating.” Readers will understand a back story involving love and loss, difficulty in communication, sadness, and acceptance of children growing up. The poems gain strength from well-chosen accompanying images, including sketches and paintings by Dimenichi and colorful works by Jamaican-born painter Powell that enrich the verbal landscape. Several full-page images by each artist appear, suggesting a thematic connection or amplifying an emotion in a given poem. A richly textured, grand illustration of a tree by Dimenichi, for example, appears alongside a poem that celebrates the inspiration of such towering entities. A poem concerned with self-reflection joins a Powell painting of floating, twinned female forms. The figures seem to both depict and satisfy the speaker’s need to be seen, with their emphasis on mirror images, body doubles, and echoes of shapes. Even the windshield of a car can be a “two way mirror” behind which the driver is “invisible to life outside.” An explicitly female body is glimpsed in the sketches, and the warm, dreamlike compositions give it substance.
Poems and images that ask readers to appreciate a searching body for its beauty and grace.Pub Date: July 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-304-13091-4
Page Count: 58
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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