Customer Reviews

Speaking in Tongues: New and Selected Poems

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"Charles Ghigna writes with appealing freshness, placing his words exactly and concisely, with a mean eye for a metaphor. He takes aim often at difficult and elusive targets, and he hits far more than his quota. His best poems -- and many are particularly fine -- read like short, hard chisel-jabs into a sheet of granite." --X.J. Kennedy, 1994

I highly recommend this book. It is divided into sections that reveal a broad range of style and subject. Readers who delight in word play will particulary enjoy the poems on the circus and on authors. My favorite section is the one on Howard, an ambitious series of poems on an enigmatic schoolmate named Howard. "When Howard Became Jesus" will send a tingle down your spine. Sometimes to be pitied, Howard's actions nonetheless provoke self-reflection in the narrator and other persons who know him regarding struggles common to all of us. There are other fine poems as well, in both free verse and forms. I can't help but think that if more contemporary poets could combine memorable language and subjects the way these poems do, poetry would have a bigger audience in the U.S. I was formerly a teacher, and in addition to reading these poems for your own pleasure, I recommend this as a book to share with your students to help awaken them to the possibilities of language and to writing their own poems. Buy the hardcover if you can get it -- you will want to pull this book from the shelf often and reread it.

"A masterful collection of poetic strength and clairty of vision; poems dealing with a broad range of subjects from a fighter learning of hands, to a mystical man named Howard trying to find himself in a world all but beyond his grasp." --Paul Ruffin, 1994