This was a very simple and straight forward poetry collection. Unlike other poetry collections I have read, this was a really quick read!Overall I enjoyed this collection. One of my major complaints was about Walker's line breaks, capitalization, and punctuation. There were some poems were each line was a single word; and of course, each line had to be capitalized. There were some poems were there was absolutely no punctuation. The lack of punctuation isn't necessarily a bad thing if it has been mastered. But, Walker hasn't mastered it. The reader is often left lost and needs to reread sections of these poems (when the text is simple and does not call for it) to ground themselves in the poem. It was really unfortunate because Walker develops some beautiful rhythm and rhyme, which were at times ruined due to the punctuation.Overall I enjoyed the topics of this collection. The first section, "In These Dissenting Times," explores growing up, community, religion, and death in a unique way. The other sections of the collection explore love on different levels - how love can push us to become better people, and what happens when self righteousness replaces love. Only one section didn't click strongly with me, which was "Revolutionary Petunias." It wasn't bad, it just didn't live up to the rest of the collection. The title poem was the only "bad" one, I didn't fully understand it and didn't enjoy it at all. But a collection having one bad poem was not bad at all! Beyond the issues with structure, Walker's poems were straight forward but not over the top. I enjoyed this collection and will look for others, I am sure.
What do You think about Revolutionary Petunias (1973)?
