A review by aimiller
Soul Sister Revue: A Poetry Compilation by Cathy Linh Che, Ed Toney, R.A. Villanueva, María Fernanda Chamorro, Cynthia Dewi Oka, Candace Williams, Kamilah Aisha Moon, Kyle Dargan, Cynthia Manick, Yesenia Montilla, Mia King, David Tomas Martinez, Caits Meissner, R. Erica Doyle, Roberto Garcia, Cheryl Boyce-Taylor, Denice Frohman, Evie Shockley, Yadira De La Riva, Elana Bell, Rio Cortez, José Olivarez, Freida Jones, Keisha-Gaye Anderson, Patricia Smith, J.P. Howard, Jason Koo, Lynne Procope, Chris Slaughter, Peggy Robles-Alvarado, Noel Quiñones, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Yasmin Belkhyr, Hanif Abdurraqib, Jeremy Michael Clark, Safia Jama, Pamela Sneed, Cortney Lamar Charleston, Joshua Bennett, Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie, Rico Frederick, Amber Atiya
4.0
I will say first that I received a copy of this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, and I am grateful to the publishers for the opportunity to read this.
This was a really solid collection of poetry by poets of color! There was a nice mix (as Manick points out in her introduction, done deliberately,) of established poets and newer voices. The "what is soul" questions seemed like an odd attempt to draw the collection together--I know they were part of the original reading series, but given that the poems themselves are not necessarily all about soul (or rather, there is little done to connect what soul means to the poets to the poems themselves,) it comes across as unnecessary? But still a really really good collection, and a great jumping off point if you're interested in reading more poets of color!
This was a really solid collection of poetry by poets of color! There was a nice mix (as Manick points out in her introduction, done deliberately,) of established poets and newer voices. The "what is soul" questions seemed like an odd attempt to draw the collection together--I know they were part of the original reading series, but given that the poems themselves are not necessarily all about soul (or rather, there is little done to connect what soul means to the poets to the poems themselves,) it comes across as unnecessary? But still a really really good collection, and a great jumping off point if you're interested in reading more poets of color!