Gary Jackson (1)

This caught my eye because it was billed as a "graphic novel in verse form" -- i.e., no pictures, just poetry.

Some thought-provoking concepts, insights, and moments are offered, but since it is poetry they are too often obfuscated or rendered incoherent. Told in verse and poetic vignettes, the dozens of poems and paragraphs connect just enough to outline a sort of story arc with recurring characters. Sometimes I was moved, but many times I was confused as to whose point of view was being show more offered or what was happening and how did it relate to the rest of the book.

In the end, I have to give it a thumbs down because of its muddled state, but it is certainly worth a look if you are seeking a unique superhero experience.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. show less

I received a digital copy of this for review through the Library Thing Early Reviewers program. I absolutely loved it, so much that I've ordered the hard copy for my home library. It's a poetic treatment of the lives of several superheroes, and the word choice is delicious. The scenarios are fantastic and totally relatable at the same time, with resonances of black experience. Highly recommend if you enjoy well-written poetry and/or the "real lives" of superheroes.

Ah, once a man is loved or woman, they seek this ascension of more love as though an insistent spillage of power. But, to be so want and be bereft of knowing; no man is wholly hated no man is wholly loved is a heaven- it refreshes having knowledge of each palpable fluer, knowing whether you go there or else; there may be acceptance of not. To be black is not wholly to be hated nor wholly loved. To be human is a case of the same skin. It oft fills the well of my soul knowing one may never show more please all mankind; even if they ask of this in a begging alms it is not of realness. If the Buddha was not fully loved or if Jesus was not fully hated what can we ask of a tale of human nature?

Am i oddity or i?

I jested with Sam Saxx, does this bed look black enough? Does my hair have too many rivulets? For awhile I thought I was gay, then the fly buzzed and now all I remember in the echo of Flaubert was does a word still meaning be pressed acrid? If a fairy had flown through, is there a curtsy of anthema? I looked at my brown supple skin on the hand that shook me hard as though I were being reprimanded for god, and I saw the black man’s eyes hunger to say; o’ hoary is this the night of my dawning? When I play vixen i saw my favorite women being shewed to their homes. When krsna ushered gopis to the temple of field, one stayed because a door was locked onto her; apparently she died of greedy men- so too, i an odd bird crowed like a jambole but niegh cried for raison veritus. Is nightmare a jackel breathing on spilt milk or a Nurse dressing a wound for a dead soldier who’s been dead long into the wane and still peers into the sun tilted town feeding over histrionics. Was the castle ever stormed when a man dark in invasion lent his ear to the soul, and plucked history? Sitting like a tiara upon a brood as though they knew to listen. Soft peril some new grace. I spoke of town country and paced like a quack with his head removed sitting upon his palm, a twisting of grooves where a frenetic pattern of paths intertwined and a magic cuss or duende became me to mock. I lent thee the ear of my path and heard a jerk as though piston and soon a flare of solar shook Jesus; he mumbled slow in heat, ‘I need to clock out, I don’t really get paid overtime like that.’ Watch the man circles cemeteries smoking an eye. A patchwork tussled. And, so I wove a bray and thought should I be bridge of San Luis Rey or troll haunting interwebbed dawn- was I not oddity and the gold cast sun itself?- Harry Edgar Pope Angelus show less