25th YTD
My 25th completed book of the year is The Words Just Jumped Right Out!, a chapbook by local poet M. J. Washington. I first heard M.J. read at the Along These Rivers rollout party in January, and I very much enjoyed her poem "What I Liked About Home" which got a general positive audience reaction. Then we read together again at the Monroeville Public Library in April, and I bought this chapbook from her.
"What I Liked About Home" is in here, too, and is still my favorite. The collection is mostly rhymed, religion-infused, hip-hop/poetry slam influenced lyric verse. As is true with most lyric verse, these poems would be better performed than they are on the page (which is not a weakness, it's the nature of lyric) but this is still a solid first effort.
I won't quote any full poems (you should buy the books), but I will offer three lines that I especially enjoyed from "Bad Reception?"
and sometimes
when there's too much drama in my life
I just pause for a commercial interruption
CBsIP: The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, Ross E. Dunn
A History of Warfare, John Keegan