The 1975 Black Literary Scene: Significant Developments
[My House] by title implies both a kind of freedom to deal in lyrics with things which affect the poet personally and intimately and a projection of the mind and feelings of the poet from her center of being. The poems that strike me as the best in the group are those which involve love, dedications to certain personalities, personal fury, and relatives…. Something of the personal voice comes through in ["My House"]…. (p. 111)
"When I Die" catches up and projects the voice tone in its fury…. "Untitled," a poem for Margaret Danner, makes effective use of folk feeling, although its first simile ("benefits like ripples on a pond") is not very effectual in the context of the poem. Some poems place excessive dependence upon wit, fantasy, or cleverness. But the book tends to give us varied voices from the poet. (p. 112)
George E. Kent, "The 1975 Black Literary Scene: Significant Developments," in PHYLON: The Atlanta University Review of Race and Culture, 37 (copyright, 1976, by Atlanta University; reprinted by permission of PHYLON), Vol. 37, No. 1, First Quarter (March, 1976), pp. 100-15.∗
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