Subtitle: Writing Truth and Justice with Capital Letters, lie and oppression with Smalll
ISBN: 9781515232490
Available as e-book or paper on Amazon
Genre: Poetry
USA Book News Finalist
Accepted for inclusion in Poets & Writers prestigious list of published poets, multi award-winning novelist and poet Carolyn Howard-Johnson is widely published in journals and anthologies. She is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, and her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was named to Pasadena Weekly’s list “Fourteen San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen” and was given her community’s Diamond Award for Achievement in the Arts and her poetry chapbooks have won several awards. One of her poems won the Franklin Christoph poetry prize. She was an instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program for nearly a decade. Learn more about all her books at http://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile or http://howtodoitfrugally.com. All proceeds from this book will be donated to Amnesty International. Their work includes–in part–monitoring human rights violations the world over.
Published: August 2015
Reviewed by Darcia Helle, author and reviewer
Originally published on Darcia's Quiet Fury blog
Originally published on Darcia's Quiet Fury blog
Carolyn Howard-Johnson has the ability to transform intensely personal experiences and emotions into poetry that belongs to all of us. She draws us in, embracing us with her words.
Survival allows no time to laugh, no time to cry.
I love the theme of this collection. Carolyn looks at the broad scope of war, humanizing events, inviting us to see beyond political soundbites. We’re not given a stream of violent words to spark graphic images. Her intent here is not to shock with trails of blood. Instead, we’re shown what war looks like from a smaller standpoint; a child, a grandmother, a friend. We also see what compassion looks like, what real justice might feel like if we could learn to embrace our differences.
Does danger lurk
in the dark of my closet
or the fist of discipline
or the noose of justice?
This is a beautiful collection of poems that can be read and reread many times over.
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