Lowrider Librarian

What is a Ghazal? Get this book now! I had no idea (other than it is a poetic form from the middle east) until I read the introduction to this wonderful work.  I didn't look it up because I was enthralled with the content of this beatific book!  I didn't know James Foley , but my friend Yago Cura was his good friend.  Hinchas press (Yago Cura publisher) just recently published a book of Poetry entitled Ghazals for Foley.  This is a striking collection of poems written by people to James Foley posthumously.   The book also includes a short story written by Foley that is utterly fascinating, intriguing and beautiful.  I feel like I got to know Jim Foley via these poems and his short story.  The intensity of a life so well lived is reason for a celebration.  The poems vary in quality according to my taste, but there are some really striking and personal words here.  They are all beautiful and in deeply pers...

This book is amazing on so many levels. Poetically, it stands almost alone as an example of relationships, alienation, microaggressions, and racism in the 21st century US. Quote from Citizen A friend recommended this book to me over the break--as we were all freshly cut wide open from the Ferguson coverage, revealing local discussions and ongoing murder of POC from any age and area in the US. I finally got a hold of it via the library and read it in earnest. The descriptions of racial microaggressions in 2nd person narrative poetry are so powerful I was shaking as I read them. Quote from Citizen Each page is condensed emotion, reaction and analysis of a lifetime of experiencing relationships that bite while smiling.  Her poetry describes how inescapable it is to be a POC in the US at this time and place.  The relentless assault upon our senses of 21st century lynchings and their impact the mental health, awareness and identity of POC is explicated in de...