Review
"In Minnie Bruce Pratt's Walking Back Up Depot Street we meet one of the most perceptive characters to populate contemporary poetry, a woman named simply Beatrice who acts both as initiator and vehicle in these moving poems.... -- Anne-Marie Oomen in ForeWord, May 1999
"This ambitious work which brilliantly uses biography, historical documents, newspaper reportage, oral history, fragments from testimony and interviews, never lets the reader down, not as art or as evidence. . . . Here, writing her greatest poems, a 'heart of flesh' is earned by consciousness of the powerful interrelated and often buried forces that connect us and shape who we are. -- Toi Derricotte
"This ambitious work which brilliantly uses biography, historical documents, newspaper reportage, oral history, fragments from testimony and interviews, never lets the reader down, not as art or as evidence. . . . Here, writing her greatest poems, a 'heart of flesh' is earned by consciousness of the powerful interrelated and often buried forces that connect us and shape who we are. -- Toi Derricotte
From the Publisher
Enthusiasm for this collection stems as much from the manner in which these poems are structured as from their subject matter. In Minnie Bruce Pratt's Walking Back Up Depot Street we meet one of the most perceptive characters to populate contemporary poetry, a woman named simply Beatrice who acts both as initiator and vehicle in these moving poems. The landscapes and narratives of the poems - ranging from the domestic and imagistic to profoundly political - are seen through her eyes, a southern woman who, as she learns the history of her own nation's atrocities toward people of color - primarily black Americans - also struggles with how she must live her life in the face of such knowledge. As a result, the poems never seem preachy or self-righteous. Rather, because readers see them through Beatrice's eyes, her growing commitment to humanity, and more importantly, to understanding the forces of fear that shape her existence are appreciated.
This is an exceptional collection in every way; broad in subject, skilled in craft, diverse in its population and conscious of the tragic world. It could be overwhelming and general, but because readers see it through the eyes of Beatrice, readers come to care for her and her vision. In that sense Pratt has created a Beatrice as momentous as Dante's. Her Beatrice has not turned away from, but has embraced, as clear-eyed as she can, that harsh history which includes everyone. Because of that readers will walk with her into hell - even into our own roles in the story.--ForeWord Magazine
