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Loading... Soldier: A Poet's Childhoodby June Jordan
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A profoundly moving childhood memoir by a noted poet, essayist, teacher, and journalist. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)811.54Literature English (North America) American poetry 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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The details of her memories are those of a poet, and therefore rich and evocative. Her story is personal and specific, but also important as an addition to the voices of People of Color in this country.
But the book has no real sense of being a memoir. The very difficult work of memoir is forging all those bits of one’s life into a compelling narrative. Instead, Jordan catches them like butterflies in a net and lets them flit off each other from one fragment to the next. While I found her life fascinating, I had to struggle to keep the momentum because there was no urgency or tension or cohesion to the story. Maybe that is an overstatement. At least, there wasn’t enough of those elements to satisfy this reader.
I did learn from reading this book. It showed me just how much I want to create a thickly textured and urgent story in my own memoir.
The book would be a wonderful source of material for a biographer of Jordan–or for a literary critic who is writing about the poet. But for an engaging nonfiction read, I would choose a different book. ( )