Customer Reviews

Blue-Tail Fly (Made in Michigan Writers Series)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Now THIS is what poetry can do! It's a bold move, writing a book of poetry about historical events (e.g., the Civil war, the Mexican war) that most of us encounter only through the deadening lens of battered high school textbooks -- and yet Francis offers one of the most human and immediate collections of poetry I've encountered in quite a while. She manages, through her keen eye and her empathy for her characters and her understanding of their voices, to make these long-dead, remote people (mostly the folks who never appear in the textbooks) fully alive, urgent, now. Even the famous people -- Lincoln, Taylor -- become more human in her hands. I was shattered by "A singular dispersion," horrified by "Linsey-Woolsey," wounded by the Detroit riots poems, stirred by "Walt Whitman reads to the limbless," moved by "The White Immensities," and on and on. These are great poems individually, and such a strong, strong collection altogether!

This "book of poetry" is anything but a chap-book of rhyme verse. It is a beautifully woven tale told by a true poet and lover of the written word. I can't wait until her next offering!