Reviewed by Shawn LaTorre
Posted on: March 8, 2023
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Like Gwendolyn Brooks, who used her poetic talent to uncover the Black experience in America, Cynthia Manick also takes the reins on self-discovery, bringing to light personal experiences and frustrations with today’s world.
I am so hungry for
what I don’t know, my wisdom
teeth grow back every year…
and
The sky soaks up my blues…
These two lines from the poem “Self Portrait No. 9: What the Mirror Sees” demonstrate the duality of emotion that characterizes much of Manick’s poetry and poetic prose.
Along with motifs of life—blood, veins, and the body—multi-sensory experiences emanate from poems:
I was scent starved
for oranges in winter
from “Last Night Inside My Blood.”
Her writing also exhibits a raw, honest sensuality:
In a jazz fest full
of downbeats,
with pints of Bulmers,
he knew how to peel my rind
like a Marabel potato,
all in one go.
From “Last Night Inside My Blood.”
Organized in four sections entitled “Self Portraits and Other Skies,” “I Want Us Living, Not Just Alive,” “Sin is a Good Hymn,” and “If We Should, Who Will Fly After Us,” Manick’s work encompasses passion, perceptions, celebration, and a certain depth of wonder that is uncommon and refreshing among writers today. Her verse is free verse with a few free verse shape poems.
Manick’s anthology would not be complete without baring threads of social injustice. In “Things I Can’t Say in This Book,” number fourteen states: “Dear Crayola, your 64-crayon pack is lacking multicultural options, i.e., cinnamon, cocoa, sepia, tan, and mahogany.” In “Self Portrait and Other Skies,” she writes:
I blame a lot of people
For listing all the ways we are a problem
For the abundance of beige crayons…
She, like many poetic voices, wonders why she so often “wants to rage—” as she points out the sweet escape Jet Magazine brought to her mother, a magazine described as a “rainbow with a streak of Black.” In “MTA Exam Attempt #4,” we find a daughter listening in as her father struggles mightily to read the exam questions. Yet he persists through attempt number eight.
There’s a finality in many of the poems presented here that expresses a beautiful reliance on family, love, and self-confidence.
She (her sister) remembers my grandma’s
smile on her forehead,
pickles and juice in a jar.
From “Self Portrait No. 1 (On Becoming Light).”
We so fly no voodoo required
so fly call us constellation
we so fly the sun be jealous.
From “Self Portraits and Other Skies.”
This volume of poetry is honest and perceptive. Almost like a coming of age novel, Manick’s writing takes flight around the wonder at life itself. I highly recommend this anthology to readers who enjoy poetry and who seek to understand more about the voice and experiences of one very talented Black writer.
