A moving, defiant poetic exposé of world injustice.
Black feminist poet and educator Juanita rails against those who threaten the “inviolable right to live” in this collection.
“Some time after my youthful and equally fervent participation in the Black Panther Party, I became a Nichiren Soka Gakkai Buddhist,” remarks Juanita in her preface to this new collection. The poet goes on to explain how the second president of Soka Gakkai International, Josei Toda, denounced people who would employ nuclear weaponry as “ ‘devils’ in the Buddhist sense of ‘robbers of life.’ ” Throughout this book, Juanita calls out the “evils of imperialism,” including nuclear aggression, equating it with the destructive movie monster Godzilla. The opening work even draws on a plot summary of the original 1954 film: “American nuclear weapons testing has created a seemingly unstoppable, dinosaur-like beast”; in “return of godzilla,” the concept of the creature is used to draw attention to other monstrous aspects of humankind: “unfaltering racism / uglier than godzilla’s scales.” On another occasion, the poet takes aim at Hollywood “as out-of-date / an institution as slavery.” Other poems touch on figures from popular culture; one provocatively juxtaposes Dave Chappelle and Malcolm X, and in “lizzo fights godzilla,” the titular singer and flautist confronts “amerikkka the beautiful,” with the speaker declaring “we is 100% behind you baby girl / behind your superb black ass...let us worship lizzo / that’s right—bow down.” Toward the close of the collection, the poet includes “The Gun as Ultimate Performance Poem,” an 8-page work that addresses gun control in America.
Over the course of this compilation, Juanita writes gloriously unrestrained poetry that always packs a punch. For instance, a poem titled “old black woman” rapidly develops into an unsettling portrait of racial oppression: “her favorite show was lassie / said white people love their dogs so much / because it was bred in them / to treat blacks like beasts / of burden during slavery.” Meticulously placed line breaks further intensify this poem’s impact. Elsewhere, “swimming towards godzilla, swimming from godzilla” deftly pinpoints the horror, sadness, and futility of the refugee crisis: “in the great Mediterranean / their arms paddle to freedom / the women and babies scream and sink / into eternity / a few feet from the raft.” Such jarring imagery compels readers to face issues of social injustice head-on. Juanita’s poetry can also be wryly amusing, as in a poem that points out the absurdity of people being defined by their skin color: “ ‘I’m crazy about the new guy. What a pumpkin.’ / ‘Are you sure he’s not a yam? Or even a sweet potato?’ ” Throughout, her poems aim to shake readers up and make them rethink issues from new angles, as in the aforementioned “The Gun as Ultimate Performance Poem,” in which the speaker declares, “I don’t want gun control. I want police who are unarmed, peace officers.” Readers will find this to be incisive writing that aims to be a powerful tool for positive change.
A moving, defiant poetic exposé of world injustice.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2022
ISBN: 9781732609808
Page Count: 90
Publisher: EquiDistance Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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