NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW
An independent small press poetry review
 DANA LITTLEPAGE SMITH: BLACK ELK DANCES FOR QUEEN VICTORIA Cinnamon Press Ty Meiron Glan yr Afon Tanygrisiau Blaenau Ffestiniog Gwynedd LL41 3SU UK ISBN 978 1 905614 39 4 £7.99 email Cinnamon Press visit the website of Cinnamon Press        Web design by  This page last updated: 1st January 2008. |
DANA LITTLEPAGE SMITH: BLACK ELK DANCES FOR QUEEN VICTORIA | |
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It was sheer coincidence that the day that I happened to dip into the website of Cinnamon Press — and yes, good enough to eat! — was the same day that I opened BLACK ELK DANCES, to review. I was eager to read on. In their blurb Cinnamon Press claimed to be independent, innovative and international.I was keen to see if this author lived up to these lofty statements. Her first poem DILRUBA SARANG did not disappoint. I felt the pain and sorrow that the dreaded Taliban is placing on the world today. I can also feel the pain and anguish in her WISH FOR AN EMBRYO A speck unfaced, unformed, unlymphed, unlimbed, slipped into me.Bitter-sweet writing indeed. THE DEVON WITCHES is taken from fact so the reader has history woven through its elegant lines. For me, particularly poetic is her Reason grows lean in our village while heresy grows fat.In ABOUT SUFFERING the poet gives the reader all the little clues (as if they are needed!) September's duck egg blue, the arc of flame and fireball undreamtand her heart-stoppingly who ever stops to realise the paradise of time?The poet treats us to her cosmopolitan flair. A wonderful example for me, still with her poignant ABOUT SUFFERING is A cream of pages hurricane from blown windows like gulls to wing their way out to the ripples of the Hudson, where Bronx bills mingle with share prices in ShanghiIn her longish poem which gives the collection its quirky title, there are displayed numerous original-thinking phrases such as Albert lives in the badger's eyeand Your black becomes the raven's wing.For me, MADAME BOVARY, YOU'VE GOT MAIL, is an absolute joy to read. I loved the whole concept. Once read, not to be forgotten. The sheer sadness of BITCH leaps from the page. You cannot help but be moved. We, the readers have seen these human/animal/feral children courtesy of our television screens. We squirm in discomfort and disbelief from the comfort, safety and distance of our armchairs. Disbelief at man's inhumanity to man – and where animals take over the nurturing instead. Poems such as this are more than simple words on the page. | ||
| reviewer: Louise Laurie. |