Literary reviews by Tim Love.
Warning: Rather than reviews, these are often notes in preparation for reviews that were never finished, or pleas for help with understanding pieces. See Litref Reviews - a rationale for details.

Saturday 10 October 2020

"Wade in the water" by Tracy K. Smith (Penguin, 2018)

Mostly beyond me at the moment. I think the fragmentary part II will always be beyond me. I like "A Man's World". "Watershed" has the hallmarks of someone short of ideas - lists, random white space, and borrowings. "4 1/2" has ""Pee! Pee! she sings, hopping in place, trying/ to staunch off the wild ravenous river/ she carries" where a number of the word choices puzzle me - why is "off" needed? Why "ravenous"? And why "carries"? Later there's "stands/ Bereft, relieved, as a pool trickles out/ Around her feet. She's like an island/ Made of rock, with one lone tree at the top/ Of the only mountain.". which sounds better.

Other reviews

  • Kate Kellaway
  • Adrianna Smith (Erasure poems, also referred to as documentary or blackout poems, are powerful tools to understand the present through the past. ... Though Smith’s work contains multitudes, she ultimately fixates on the notion of national identity in Wade.)
  • goodreads

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