Face Book

Sheman Alexie is one of my favorite living writers. Not only has he written some amazing short story collections and novels (and screenplays!), but he also written a number of poetry collections. His newest book, War Dances, features a combination of short stories and poems, but this book, Face, is the first full-on poetry collection of his that I have read. I found myself caught up in his words--sometimes I was laughing and smiling, other times I felt sad and somber. Alexie is a master at crafting poems that speak to the core of our humanity. He touches on family, loss, memory, fathers, sons, sex, writers, marriage, and more. While he does write free verse, he tends to gravitate toward poems with a more formal structure, particularly the sonnet. He rhymes adeptly, even though he likes to sometimes (humorously) point out his poor attempts at rhyming. This is a collection of poems that I will return to, to read again, to savor.

Favorites include:
Avian Nights, Wheat, The Blood Sonnets, The Seven Deadly Sins of Marriage, Scarlet, A Comic Interlude, Nudity Clause, Psalm 101, On the Second Anniversary of My Father's Death, Size Matters, Reading Light, Thrash