April Is National Poetry Month

Former Santa Barbara poet laureate, and a book reviewer for the Independent, David Starkey does something special each year in honor of National Poetry Month (i.e., April) — he writes one review for every day of the month. The following are his book selections for this year.

David Bottoms, Otherworld, Underworld, Prayer Porch:  A sympathetic but unsentimental portrait of the white South: Baptist women, target practice with double-barreled 12-gauge shotguns, fields, barns, horses, and, above all, the connections among family that are as enduring as “the landscape / of your childhood.” 

Tracy K. Smith, Wade in the Water:  Being U.S. Poet Laureate during the Trump presidency can’t be easy, but Smith has managed it gracefully and without ever pulling punches. Her own verse is powerful, but the most striking poem in this collection may be a sequence consisting entirely of letters and statements from Civil War–era African-American soldiers and their dependents.