Poems

No missing pages, Water Damage, or stains. Spine shows creasing. This is a readable copy.

As a poet, Brown has a decidedly tin ear. First published in 1971 and 1973 as The Hand that Cradles the Rock and Songs to a Handsome Woman, these poems are concerned primarily with the women's movement and women loving women. A few titles: "Dancing the South to the True Gospel or the Song My Movement Sisters Let Me Sing," "Hymn to the 10,000 Who Die Each Year on the Abortionist's Table in Amerika," "A Short Note for Liberals," "To My Dream Butch Straight Lady Who Bolts Her Doors but Leaves Her Windows Unlatched." To her credit, Brown's introduction to the poetry is modest, charming and self-effacing. She reports that she began writing the novel Rubyfruit Jungle when she realized that there was no money in poetrya lucky break for author and readers alike. Fans of Sudden Death and Southern Discomfort may nevertheless want to check this one out. However lacking in craft her poetry may be, Brown's forceful and ebullient personality comes through with a punch.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Brown clearly feels an affection for the poems presented here, taken from two earlier volumes. Anti-war themes and the brashness of loving another woman become curiosities for a poet who says she is at the cusp of middle age. But many of these poemsshort, fragmentary, borderline arrogantstill work because of enthusiasm and surprise. There is a good deal of image-packing here, done with the conviction of a woman who is sure about what life needs to be lived: "All men must die./ But I/Return to the ocean." Elsewhere imagery makes the message flicker: "Where tiny birds with invisible knees stoop to pick what they missed." Young poems. Rosaly Demaios Roffman, Indiana Univ. of Pennsylvania.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.