Subtitled "Talking Soapboxes," contains two prose pieces, an essay, an interview, and eighteen poems. Multi-cultural, intellectual but not obtuse, and casually feminist. There is an essay which compares Black English and Standard English within American Universities. A prose piece delves into the friendship of two preadolescent youths, one a recent immigrant. Another short story leads us from L.A. to Mexico, to Canada in a pre-NAFTA meta-critique of trade and existence in a multi-national sphere. Even the poetry evokes balanced assertions: "i cried out 'i will follow you then.'/ they looked with disgust/ and told me i was just a white male." Included is the "First Annual Amnesty International Poetry Contest" winner "There's A Nigger in tha' Neighborhood" by Shirley Ward: "Black niggers, red niggers, yellow niggers, brown niggers, an'/ po' ass white niggers.../ Niggers inside my own race/ who can't quite keep up the socio-economic pace." Chronically angry, not soon be forgotten.--R.R. Lee Etzwiler
This review originally appeared in TapRoot Reviews #4,
Contact the editor, luigi-bob drake, at Burning Press
Copyright Burning Press 1994, 1995.