American journal Fifty poems for our time

This anthology brings together voices both familiar and new-all living American -poets. In five thematic sections, ranging widely in style and topic, they speak passionately about family life, politics, history, hope, and our nation's multicultural identity. The fourth section, "Here the Sentence Will Be Respected," consists of a single poem, Layli Long Soldier's "38," which weaves comments on the writing process as it describes the hanging of 38 Dakota Natives ordered by President Abraham Lincoln about the time of the Emancipation Proclamation-"the largest 'legal' mass assassination in US history." "I am inclined to call this act by the Dakota warriors a poem," says Long Soldier. "There's irony in their poem./ There was no text." In another intriguing poem, "Reverse Suicide," Matt Rasmussen tells of a suicide backward: "and we pour bag after bag/ of leaves on the lawn,// waiting for them to leap/ onto the bare branches." The small format makes for a portable volume, to be perused throughout the day. VERDICT As in every anthology, some poems impress and others not so much. But the best provide images and characters (real or imagined) in strong language, and the multiplicity of viewpoints and energy presented here often remind us of what it means to be human.-Doris Lynch, Monroe Cty. P.L., Bloomington, IN © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.