Holiday Gift: Imperfect Echoes Supports Amnesty International

Imperfect Echoes
Subtitle: Writing Truth and Justice with Capital Letters, lie and oppression with Small
By Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Cover and Internal Art by Richard Conway Jackson
Genre: Poetry 
ISBN: 9781515232490
Available on Amazon as e-book or paper
Finalist USA Book News
All Proceeds Support Amnesty International

Holiday Gift for the Thoughtful Person on Your List

REVIEWED BY MARLAN WARREN, originally for Midwest Book Review

Narcissus knows her reflection

well. She forgets to peer

under burkas, in our jails,

in the beds of the abused,

deeper, deeper into the pond...

From Narcissus Revisited a poem

in Imperfect Echoes.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s “Imperfect Echoes: Writing Truth and Justice with Capital Letters, lie and oppression with Small” is just perfect. This Los Angeles award-winning poet lays out the landscape of her contemplative thoughts, feelings and reactions with such honesty and deceptive simplicity that they have the effect of offering a peek into her private journals. What puts this poetry on par with leaping tall buildings is the fact that each poem manages the feat of conveying personal and universal relevance at once.

 Do not be scared off by the prospect of political rhetoric masquerading as literature; this is not one of those books. Although the book's subtitle may strike some as rather lofty, it is a quote from Czeslaw Milosz's poem, “Incantation,” in his anthology, “The Captive Mind,” which reflects Howard-Johnson's poetic themes. She has divided her prolific poems into a Prologue plus four sections: “Remembering What We Must”; “Nations: Tranquil Self-Destruction”; “Acceptance: Waiting for the Gift”; and “Future Stones of Distrust.”

 Howard-Johnson deftly blends the "Truth and Justice" observations with the "Small" moments of "lie(s)" and "oppression" as they intersperse through her poet's journey. The poems in “Remembering What We Must” address the stark realities of war and global misery, which Howard-Johnson treats with her practiced light touch that floats like the proverbial butterfly and stings like an outraged bee. 

In “Belgium's War Fields,” she compares the reasons for bygone wars to our present day confusion: “And now a war that takes from the mouths /and hearts of the stranded, the homeless. / How different from those who / marched with snares or flew flags / in a war when we knew / why we were there.”

 In the “Nations: Tranquil Self-Destruction” section, “The Story of My Missed Connection in Minneola” brings to life a brief rest stop during a road trip, which seems rather amusing at first as the wife relieves her bladder and the husband declines the coffee with “Let's skip it. Coffee's / probably been stewing for days...” but hits an unexpected bump of overt bigotry when the roadside store owner confides in them (in between the screeches of his pet parrot) that he left Los Angeles to get away from the “ragheads.”

 In the “Acceptance: Waiting for the Gift” section, “Relatives” takes on the ways in which "Small" minds can make a family dinner feel like a stint in Purgatory: “Perhaps you won't invite me back / if I mention that infamous / uncle. You know, the one who killed / three of his wives / but is candid / about who he is, / how many he's killed, / the methods he used / and never gets invited to dinner.

In the “Future Stones of Distrust” section, “Rosa Parks Memorialized” opens with “On the day our September losses / reached 2,000, a tribute / to Rosa...” and asks “If she were alive now.../ would her solo / be enough or do we need now a choir singing, / thousands screaming...?”

 Imperfect Echoes allows readers to witness a poet's lifetime revisited in memory and with fresh wisdom. If the topics of oppression, prejudice and war seem to some "overdone," Howard-Johnson responds in her Prologue poem, “Apologies from a Magpie”:

 Magpies are born to sing others' songs

stained notes, imperfect echoes—

until the world begins to know

them by heart.

 Note: Proceeds from the sales will be donated to the non-profit human rights watchdog, Amnesty International. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Marlan Warren is an L.A. journalist, novelist, playwright, screenwriter, blogger, and publicist with Roadmap Communications[http://tinyurl.com/RoadmapCommunications] and Book Publicity by Marlan [http://BookPublicitybyMarlan.blogspot.com]. She reviews for the Midwest Book Review [http://www.midwestbookreview.com/rbw/nov_15.htm], and her blogs include “Roadmap Girl’s Book Buzz” [http://roadmapgirlsbookbuzz.blogspot.com] and “L.A. Now & Then [http://losangelesnowthen.blogspot.com].” Her press releases are published in Broadway World Book News and the BBC Record. She is the author of the novel, “Roadmaps for the Sexually Challenged: All’s Not Fair in Love or War” [http://tinyurl.com/qj92dhr] and the producer/writer of the acclaimed documentary, “Reunion” [http://www.directing.com]. Marlan is currently producing/directing her documentary “What Did You Do in the War, Mama?: Kochiyama’s Crusaders ” based on her play “Bits of Paradise” [http://sites.google.com/site/bitsofparadisethemovie/home].

ABOUT THE NEW BOOK REVIEW

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