Black Wings & Blind Angels: Poems (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sapphire became a semi-celebrity for the harsh poems of abuse and recovery in her first book, American Dreams; she then made waves for the huge advance on her novel Push. This second volume of verse finds her less aggressive, mixing her hostilities and anxieties with a newly bemused nostalgia. A long prose piece portrays God as a Samoan woman who greets Sapphire's abusive father in Heaven, explaining that he has been saved because he helped his daughter succeed: "You're dead Daddy and your girl she works for me, God." Where an older persona-poem had Sapphire speak with the voice of Tina Turner, a new one has her impersonating Michael Jackson, gloating, "I buy those old songs of John & Paul / & Ringo & sell 'em for dog food commercials. I am rich." The poet declares elsewhere "It is clear/ I was not cut out for bulldyking or prostitution now"; about a lover, she explains, "I am not four, his penis/ is not my father's. My father is dead, it's my life now." Among the free-verse persona poems Sapphire even strews a few sestinas. This isn't to say she's gone soft: as in Push, her compulsively consumable stories of trauma explore the far reaches of hell before coming up for air and angels. As if to remind us that she's still dangerous, one of the volume's central images is a so-called Indian wolf trap- a salt lick that hides a razor. These poems won't convert those who dislike Sapphire's work already, and they might alienate her fans; the undecided, however, may find more clarity here than in her earlier work, and thus more means for engagement. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Sapphire's brutally honest Push may have won the Black Caucus of the American Library Association's First Novelist award in 1997, but she is best known as a poet of slick-talking, nearly hallucinatory riffs on growing up poor, tough, and black in America. Spiky and uncompromising, her new poems promise more of the same.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (September 12, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679767312
• ISBN-13: 978-0679767312
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #157,105 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling, vivid poetry born of the Black experience., February 4, 2000

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Wings & Blind Angels (Hardcover)

Sapphire's Black Wings & Blind Angels provides the poetry of black writer Sapphire, which examines the black experience in America and the effects of racism and urban violence. A compelling account packed with vivid free verse images.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sapphire a poetic jewel!, January 17, 2000

By	Paul. (CowTown, Ct.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Wings & Blind Angels (Hardcover)

Sapphire's poetry is raw, rough and powered. She layers metaphor and creates images with a jazzy and urban tone. From her painful life she spawned this book, a masterpiece of emotion, as another hit to the poetic community, which is still rocking from "American Dreams."

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars another urban landmark from Sapphire, February 5, 2009

By	Paul Skiff (NYC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Black Wings & Blind Angels (Hardcover)

From her early days when you could only hear her speak her words live Sapphire has been uncompromising, not eager to please (to say the least), and seemingly more than comfortable with the difficulties she presents through her poetry. Having witnessed her progress, one gets from this published volume the sense that she is still rising to her peak and has much more to offer. 'Controversy' comes to her from those who are predisposed to their own disgust and ill-equiped to face the results of how one may embrace the shadows or 'demons' that overpopulate the world we've created, get to be on speaking terms with them, and more than survive. This volume of poems hints that she is still finding things out about herself, lives with no fear, and long ago stopped waiting for the rules. Today there are multitudes of young poets who take on the spiritual horrors of the anti-society we live in. But there are no poets who match the scathingly beautiful voice Sapphire continues to make loud.
If the two companies suing eachother in court over the rights to profit from the movie version of her novel Push don't get squashed under the influence of her power we'll soon have an emminently consumable form of her work. You can always hunt down Sapphire speaking her landmark poem Wild Thing live on the CD recording Nuyorican Symphony, Poetry Live from the Knitting Factory, if you want to experience her work the way it was meant to be.