kiramke's review against another edition
5.0
Masterful. Every time I read "For The City That Nearly Broke Me" it cut a little deeper.
freechasetoday's review against another edition
5.0
“‘History is written / on the back of the horse’ broken / by the world.” Poems that operate in traditions both epic & lyric, wrestling with and investigating masculinity, justice, love, & the history we live out daily (and the impacts, large and small, of that history, especially on the lives of every day people).
kelseymay's review against another edition
5.0
This poetry collection is amazing. Reginald's poems are heartwrenching and intelligent as fuck; he knows so much about politics, the prison industrial complex, and drug policy, and it shapes his commentary into pillars of knowledge and emotion. I ache for everything that has been lost in the aftermath of Reagan's crack conspiracy, and I ache for those being punished by systems (both legal and prison) that never cared about them beyond turning a profit. This book is a must-read for anyone who enjoys political poetry.
cmcwhite_357's review against another edition
5.0
Betts has penned a personal and an at times pained volume that describes his experiences in America after the Reagan administration made policies that had a direct affect on his future. Years ago, Ronald Reagan proposed laws and congress responded with the legislation that has doomed a generation of men to a level of prison recidivism that haunts black men to this day. The over criminalization of simple crimes of drug possession have created a permanent underclass of people. A class system that is decidedly black and brown. By demonizing black men as unrepentant criminals who are leeches on society, he created a generation of boys who would have fathers, but not know them. Hence bastards. These boys would have fathers incarcerated and gone from their lives in some cases forever.
So the book takes me on a very deep look at the prison culture, the old and the young gone forever. "Old heads here say these chains and cells and walls, State numbers, years and years and years upon Years and years ain't nothing but Jim Crow..." Some poems speak of musical influences like Miles Davis and others describe horses and chariots and which his brother admires. Horse being the name of a drug and also the feeling that fills ones chest when exhilarated. Such powerful poems fills the book.
I hope one day to meet Reginald.
So the book takes me on a very deep look at the prison culture, the old and the young gone forever. "Old heads here say these chains and cells and walls, State numbers, years and years and years upon Years and years ain't nothing but Jim Crow..." Some poems speak of musical influences like Miles Davis and others describe horses and chariots and which his brother admires. Horse being the name of a drug and also the feeling that fills ones chest when exhilarated. Such powerful poems fills the book.
I hope one day to meet Reginald.
freechasetoday's review
5.0
“‘History is written / on the back of the horse’ broken / by the world.” Poems that operate in traditions both epic & lyric, wrestling with and investigating masculinity, justice, love, & the history we live out daily (and the impacts, large and small, of that history, especially on the lives of every day people).
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