L. E. Scott

L. E. (Lewis) Scott is an African-American jazz poet and essayist who lives in Wellington, New Zealand. He is an outstanding reader, or more accurately reciter, of his own work, and many of these poems would sound wonderful in his distinctive voice.

That said, many of the poems in the first half of this book felt flat to me without the lift provided by a poet's speaking voice. The title poem, half-way through the book, was the first poem that lifted it out of the ordinary, and after that, the poems get stronger. But the most memorable piece in the book is not a poem, but an essay, "An American Soldier". Lewis Scott was just such a soldier in Vietnam, and this gives his meditations on the Iraq war remarkable depth and richness.… (mais)