Ash Wednesday, 2006

Melba Joyce Boyd and M. L. Liebler, Abandon Automobile: Detroit City Poetry 2001 (Wayne State UP, 2001). 422 pages. $19.95.

I think that the title should read Detroit City Poetry to 2001 or somesuch as the collection digs into the wealth of poetic history surrounding Detroit before the date of publication [and not in that fake Berkeley Addison Walk way in which Berkeley lays claim to China's Li Po (701-762)]. Everyone in this book is directly connected to Detroit. W. D. Snodgrass? Who knew he taught at Wayne State between 1959-67? I seriously can't imagine him walking around Cass Corridor in the late 60s. What did he do during the riots? Andrei Codrescu immigrated from Rumania only to settle in Detroit in 1967 at the height of samesaid riots?

As with any anthology based around a single location, many of the geographic references will not translate into visceral community. Non-Detroiters might be at a loss when Lawrence Pike snipes these "Lines from a Highland Parker:"

Highland Park north of Detroit? New Yorker, smug
cosmopolite,
proofread thy soul. Your great white way already pales (286).

But readers who have never stepped foot in Wayne County, Michigan won't feel left out of the overall experience these poems offer.

There's a lot of ways that Boyd and Liebler could have framed this, stealing Chinese feudal era poets for example. Instead, they've managed the near impossible task of representing the history of Detroit-based poets while at the same time representing and promoting the current various and active communities in Detroit circa 2001.

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Poets include: Sarah Addae; Saladin Ahmed; Ron Allen; Alise Alousi; Mitzi Alvin; Olivia V. Ambrogio; Alvin Aubert; Irvine Barat; Faruq Z. Bey; Sadiq Bey; Terry Blackhawk; Melba Joyce Boyd; Jill Witherspoon Boyer; William Boyer; Donna Brook; James Burdine; Anthony Butts; Mary Ann Cameron; Norene Cashen; Leon Chamberlain; Hayan Charara; Esperanza M. Cintron; James Clay; Andrei Codrescu; Walter Cox; Stella Crews; Robert Dana; Jim Daniels; Toi Derricotte; Mark Donovan; Gloria Dyc; Henrietta Epstein; Linda Nemec Foster; Larry Gabriel; Joan Gartland; Jose Garza; Dan Georgakas; Charles A. Gervin; Michele Gibbs; Perri Giovannuci; Maurice Greenia, Jr; Jim Gustafson; Aurora Harris; Bill Harris; Kaleema Hasan; Robert Hayden; Errol A. Henderson; Barbara Henning; Lolita Hernandez; Jerry Herron; Ellen Hildreth; Edward Hirsch; Ann Holdreith; Dan Hughes; Kim Hunter; Clark Iverson; Murray Jackson; Geoffrey Jacques; Stephen Jones; Lawrence Joseph; Nubia Kai; Aneb Kgositsile; Faye Kicknosway; Margo Lagattuta; Oliver Lagrone; Christine Lahey; Michael Lauchlan; Janet Lawless; Philip Levine; M. L. Liebler; Naomi Long Madgett; Mike Madias; Peter Markus; Marc Maurus; Judith McCombs; Raymond P. McKinney; Ken Mikolowski; Derek P. Miller; Mary Minock; Christine Monhollen; Wardell Montgomery, Jr.; Jessica Care Moore; Jan Mordenski; Edward Morin; Ted Nagy; Schaarazetta Natelege; David J. Nelson; Kristin Palm; Ted Pearson; Sarah Jeanne Peters; Tom Peters, Jr.; T. R. Peters, Sr.; Lawrence Pike; Aaron Ibn Pori Pitts; Sonya Marie Pouncy; Dudley Randall; Jon Randall; Kevin Rashid; Marilynn Rashid; Eugene B. Redmond; John R. Reed; Leslie Reese; Rod Reinhart; Judith Roche; Michelle Valerie Ronnick; Irene Rosemond; Michael Ashton Rosemond; John Rybicki; Osvaldo R. Sabino; Jacqueline Rae Rawlson Sanchez; Trinidad Sanchez, Jr.; Steven Schreiner; Denise Sedman; Semal; Dennis Shea; John Sinclair; Ella Singer; W. D. Snodgrass; Elizabeth Anne Socolow; Keith Carter Sterling; Renee Tambeau; Teresa Tan; Keith Taylor; Dennis Teichman; Stephen Tudor; Chris Tysh; George Tysh; Melanie Van Der Tuin; Hilda Vest; Anca Vlasopolos; Rayfield Waller; David Watson; Barrett Watten; Kim Webb; Mary Ann Wehler; Karen Williams; Tyrone Williams; and Willie Williams.

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Consider all of these folks added to my Feb. 5 post of Detroit poets. If you can provide links to any of these, please by all means post the link in the comments box. I'll be inching forward on this for quite some time.

David