Customer Reviews

Like Water Running Off My Back: Poems

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This book deals with so many issues of the african american spectrum. I started reading a poem from this book at a friends house, and I wasn't able to put it down for the next two hours. I read and re-read each poem over and over again. This book has the ability to spark new images and thoughts into your mind each time you read it. Also the poems are written in an extremely rhythmic form. I suggest this book to anyone who is interested in poetry and/or social and political issues.

Reading this book, it's hard to believe that the author is a college student as it says on the back of this book. I mean, there is a poem, Traces of a Generation, dedicated to Allen Ginsberg. Another one, Horny, is an ode to Louis Armstrong and other jazz greats. All of that mixed in with a hip-hopish rhythm makes this book an impressive slim volume.

The poems in Like Water Running Off My Back, are driven by a music heard in the deep recesses of our collective African-American memory. What is remarkable about them is their energy, their focus, their truth -- and that they emerge from a generation many of us believe had been lost. Bravo! Mr. Asante, Jr is a writer to watch.