Poetry Book Reviews

This small  book of narrative poems offers a mix of subject matter, from tales based on or inspired by traditional folktales, such as the River King from African folklore, to tales that provide modern social commentary. Some of the poems are disturbing: traditional tales of murder and revenge, and modern ones that deal with Internet predators, sexual tourism, necklacing (a form of vigilante execution in which a tire is filled with gasoline, placed around the torso of the victim, trapping hands and arms, and then set alight), and formal justice gone bad. But not all of the pieces are heavy. […]

The Nameless Traveler wanders a fantasy world with various exotic kingdoms, just in time to save the day. Written more like the Gospels, as a hearsay remembered, it is a fresh way of tackling the genre of the myth, and you can imagine the story being told around a campfire with exaggerations and embellishments, often added into the verse here. Or maybe they happened! It’s for the reader to decide if the hero really did catch arrows with his bare hands…

I studied quite a bit of Anglo Saxon poetry at school, and especially enjoyed the verse Beowulf, an alliterate […]