Alice QuinnReseñas

Had fun inviting my grandkids to read it with me.

Compiled early during the COVID 19 pandemic, this collection of poems offers different perspectives on the strange times in which we were living. Most poems were written in free verse style. Sometimes what was offered as a poem seemed more like prose. As I read the collection, I pondered when poetry went from rhymes and meters to free verse--and why rhymes and meters are no longer favored. I enjoyed some poems more than others, which is true for almost any anthology and a reader. Some of the poems were so left-leaning politically that I disliked them; some were just so bloated and rambling I disliked them. I generally enjoyed the ones which more clearly reflected my own experiences during the pandemic.

The editor of this anthology notes that the ‘original iteration’ of this collection of poetry was gathered early, in March and April, and first published as an ebook in the spring of 2020. I have read a hardcover released last November to which twenty-two further poems have been added and the resulting collection responded to both the pandemic and other 2020 horrors (can we really separate the pandemic and the deaths of George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks and Breonna Taylor?)….

The poetry in this collection is wonderfully varied, by authors both familiar and not. In some of the poems we easily recognize that early reckoning with this new horror that we all have shared, in other poems the foci is less direct, using, for example, nature as a metaphor. Yet in others, the foci are broadened and speaks more holistically about the era. Overall, like most collections, each reader may respond differently to different poems. Below, I post three poems from the book, the last, “Weather” by Claudine Rankin, blew me away because it made a connection I had not considered before. See what you think.½

I can't resist illustrated books of poetry; the difference here is that the artwork was commissioned by the MTA, because the poems appeared on placards in the subway. Since the intention was a moment's contemplation for commuters, the poems are necessarily short, and not controversial. However, the poets are at least 85% 20th-21st Century, and women are well-represented. Thanks, Poetry Society of America! Thanks, MTA (one of the very few things for which, these days, we can thank you wholeheartedly).

I feel like maybe something was lost in translation. I really wanted to like it but the story was all over the place and then there was an abrupt ending. I didn't find Rosie to be a very interesting character. Overall it was all right but I didn't like it enough to continue the series.½