Gen-X Poetry Has A Voice
Written: Apr 15 '00 (Updated May 25 '00)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Poetically Diverse and Revealing
Cons: Pages Are Not Numbered.
|
|
|
| markantony's Full Review: In Our Own Words: An Anthology of Poetry From a G... |
"In Our Own Words" is wholly unique in that it succeeds in collecting poetry from Gen-X writers from around the world. The publisher, unlike others, has a great deal of respect for gen-xer's and fights against the ugly perceptions of the "x" generation fostered by a media mostly comprised of sell-out former hippies who need to kiss the establishment's butt in order to feel cleansed of their former behaviour.
The international breadth of the chosen writers alone will strike you as something worthy of full investigation. Editor/Publisher, Marlow Peerse Weaver manages to include writers of perspectives around the world which is another leap in strengthening the revolve of a group misunderstood and maligned on the sole basis that we didn't have the chance to act like idiots in the 1st Woodstock (which, of course, is now packaged by those same people as a "historical and cultural event.")
The ages ranges too are very impressive in that you feel a partner to many a person's feelings. The widest spectrum possible is included to present romantic, political, social, emotional and cultural views often missing from the corporate news stories on television and in print in desperate need of a dead-body quota or a boogey-man to focus attention long enough to sell soap and expensive cars.
Poems like "Belfast 98" and "Days of Unemployment and Attachment Problems" run side by side other lighter works such as "A Chance Encounter with Relish" and "Verbs with Such Meaning." 132 poems in all
constitute a project like no other published in America today. "In Our Own Words" attempts to collectively allow members of misunderstood generation speak their hearts and minds in uncensored poetic beauty.
You'll read and appreciate their hopes and fears and the unspoken truth that they have inherited a mess of a society and world and are criticized for not having solutions to repair it. Which is a dilemma akin to handcuffing a person and asking them to defeat a professional boxer in full view of the entire world.
Members of my generation are not supposed to grow into their own, make their own unique mistakes, we are supposed to be born read to tackle the garbage and gutless decisions previously made by our parents who have had a major part in all the bad and good society presently offers. We are being set up to fall. "Generation Lee Harvey Oswald" is what some of my friends call us. We will find our own voice and way by making our own errors and solutions in our own time.
For purposes of full disclosure I feel it necessary to reveal that I too as a writer and playwright was invited to submit a poem to this project and have done so. Since this format is not a formal book review but merely an expert opinion, I offer it without feeling any tinge of conflict of interest. I have been honest and so you must decide. But whatever you decision please make it with informed knowledge of not only what I say and believe, but what you own experiences as a gen-xer shows you in today's world. To sell oneself short is to be a slave to someone's dangerous prejudice. Everyday I take the chance to be myself and not some media creation or group-think wannabe. Give yourself that same dignity.
In the world we live in today, you will actually be the rebel of righteous vision.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
markantony
|
|
Member: Mark Antony Rossi
Location: Arizona
Reviews written: 45
Trusted by: 40 members
About Me:
Rossi is author "The Intruder Bulletins," "Grins of Divinity," & "Tracking The Beast."
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.