Disclaimer: I won a copy of the book via Librarything
Poetry scares
people it seems. It’s not usually the
same way that fiction or general non-fiction scares people. Look at the ALA list of banned and challenged
books for the past year and the top ten does not include a book of poetry – and
usually does not. Even people who read
critically and widely tend to avoid poetry – saying either they don’t like it
or it is too hard to understand. Let’s
be clear some poets are – for instance why do some writers have to make an alternate
difference for the word yellow that only they use. But I believe that there is at least one poet
for everyone (Okay, I think there is more than one poet but let’s not overwhelm
people, okay?).
Danni Quintos
might be the poet for you. She’s definitely
of the poets I like after reading her collection. Quintos’ collection is
divided into three sections: Girlhood, Motherhood, and Folklore. And when you think about it that makes far more
since than Maiden, Mother, Crone.
The
Girlhood section focuses on her experiences growing up as an outside in Kentucky. She is a multi-ethnic Asian girl with brown
skin. The poems can be painful – such as
the ones about how she is treated by her classmates – also joyful in “When
Clothes Make You Cousins” or even truthfully horror filled, such as “The Worst
Part of Riding the Bus”. The poems about
her childhood crush are heartbreaking.
But there is also great joy in this section and that should be celebrated. There is the wonder and the questioning of
children as well
There is
light as well in the Motherhood section but also dark. The section is about the struggle to get pregnant
as well as the birth of her son and the changes that her body underwent, the
health issues that followed as well as raising the child. It also ends with the poem “Letter to Imelda
Marcos”, who as the wife of a president could be called a mother.
The
Folklore section is a bit different, focusing on both folklore in the traditional
sense but also as it applies to family history as well as national history. The section deals with questions we have
about families about why some things do that occur in our family histories. The same is true when she examines how
national stories are told and what information is left out.
It is a
very powerful collection.
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