Cynthia ManickRecensioni

The lines of Cynthia's poems are so intricate, musical, paradoxical, just plain accomplished that one is rendered inarticulate in describing them. Like, when she learns to be a lady:
Turn to bottles to smooth
hair-line edge, stockings
baptized, and folded lady legs.
Be glossy-lipped, use Dark
& Lovely until you learn
to lean into the earth
only in dreams.

Or in describing things that matter:
I collect small things
in the sacs of my heart—
thick juniper berries
apple cores that retain their shape
and the click of shells
that sound like an oven baking.

Watch her turn her poetry “into into a panama of sound, a house of blues, until it swells." And savor.

This book is a beautifully curated compilation of poetry themed around soul music. There are roughly forty BIPOC artists represented. Each shares a poem that they feel embodies soul, and after each there is a page that contains the artists's description of the poem, their bio, and they answer the questions "What is Soul?" and "Favorite Soul performer or song?".

Reading it was a wonderful and complicated experience, and I didn't realize how much I needed it. I enjoyed the poems, but as someone who often struggles with interpreting poetry the author discussion was invaluable. It gave me time to sit with each individual poem a little longer, and encouraged me to limit how much I read in a single sitting. The theme complimented the poetry and I found my head filled my head with music, occasionally making songs out of the poems, while I read.

My favorite poem was "Why a Colored Girl Will Slice you if you Talk Wrong About Motown" by Patricia Smith. It struck a chord with me, as I grew up in metro Detroit listening to Motown on the radio, and this poem exposes a protectiveness I also feel about my city.