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A review by megatsunami
Trouble the Water by Derrick Austin
5.0
Luminous, from beginning to end. Possibly my favorite was the first poem, "Tidewater Psalm", which begins:
"By sunset, the crickets' trilling begins
in the airless damp, rich with salt
and the sulfurous fumes the Gulf flags off.
Bristling cattails brush my hands.
The light-crested water rises and falls
like a chest flecked with blonde hairs.
I feel estranged from You."
Or this stanza from "Heaven and Earth":
"Rain connects heaven and earth.
The rivers, stained as if by wine, are indigo.
Flashes stain the skyline's smooth tableau.
Lightning's nimble fingers thread a bow
into the ombre sky and then will sew
new stars into the hem or maybe throw
it all away - how easily bodies blow
apart, warp and weft, wake and undertow."
...This book also includes the sestina "Blaxploitation," which blew me away when I read it - you can read it here:
https://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/poetry/crossroads/own_words/Derrick_Austin/
"By sunset, the crickets' trilling begins
in the airless damp, rich with salt
and the sulfurous fumes the Gulf flags off.
Bristling cattails brush my hands.
The light-crested water rises and falls
like a chest flecked with blonde hairs.
I feel estranged from You."
Or this stanza from "Heaven and Earth":
"Rain connects heaven and earth.
The rivers, stained as if by wine, are indigo.
Flashes stain the skyline's smooth tableau.
Lightning's nimble fingers thread a bow
into the ombre sky and then will sew
new stars into the hem or maybe throw
it all away - how easily bodies blow
apart, warp and weft, wake and undertow."
...This book also includes the sestina "Blaxploitation," which blew me away when I read it - you can read it here:
https://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/poetry/crossroads/own_words/Derrick_Austin/