From Library Journal
Angelou came to national recognition with her appointment as poet laureate during the Clinton inauguration in 1993. Her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" conveyed her strength, anger, and powerful reading style. But listeners who know her only through that poem would do well to remember that she also addressed the 1995 Million Man March. Her lines are rhythmic, often rhymed, in a childish iambic pentameter that can sound condescending to unprepared listeners. Equally unsatisfying are poems she writes from the Southern master's or mistress's prejudiced point of view, though she does a good job expressing the inability of 1950s Negroes to define themselves, let alone the color of their skin. Jazz interludes provide necessary pauses. A remastering of the Rhino Records 1969 release, these poems have a Sixties feel to them, closer to the poems of June Jordan, Nikki Giovanni, or Sonia Sanchez than to Rita Dove or Toi Dericotte. Recommended for African American collections and libraries with a substantial collection of recorded poetry.
Rochelle Ratner, formerly with "Soho Weekly News," New York
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Rochelle Ratner, formerly with "Soho Weekly News," New York
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
