This is an interesting publication with a consistent personality. The poetry is filled with imagery, emotions, and a few prose poems that carry a story line where it should go. Mel C. Thompson's "The High-Wire Kid" reminded me of my childhood daredevil days: "My dad just laughed at the police/ when they explained how I'd climbed/ over 150 feet in the air on the massive steel frame/ that brought electricity to thousands of homes." And Kennon Webber's "What Price Poetry?" left me worried about the days ahead: "Behind on your rent/ The four-fifty an hour job/ when you're forty years old/ ...Sleepless nights in smoky,/ crowded cafes/ Waiting for your name to be called/ on the open-mike sign-up sheet." Contributors include academics, construction workers, housewives... all of them writing powerful lines that hit the mind like gas fumes making love to a match.--oberc
This review originally appeared in TapRoot Reviews #4,
Contact the editor, luigi-bob drake, at Burning Press
Copyright Burning Press 1994, 1995.