Reviews for Life according to Motown

The average rating for Life according to Motown based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-11-28 00:00:00 Matthew Leahy The expression "wabi sabi" refers to the appreciation in Japanese culture of flawed beauty, to the aesthetic value of the hairline crack in an heirloom vase. This appreciation could, perhaps, be summarized by saying, "Nothing lasts, nothing is finished, nothing is perfect." In "Life According To Motown," Patricia Smith has created imperfect perfection. She acknowledges this in her preface to the tenth anniversary collection of these poems about being an Africsn-American girl in Chicago who came into her adolescence learning about life and love by listening to the wisdom of the Temptations and the Supremes. Smith compiled this selection of poems from stage utterances, cocktail napkin poems, anguished journal entries and dimming memories which she assembled at the request of Luis Rodriquez who asked her if she had a manuscript he could publish (Smith days, "When someone asks if you have a manuscript, you always say yes, whether or not you actually do). And Smith acknowledges that these are gems with flaws. Several of the poems would benefit from a focused editing and adjectives, at times, do the boorish work of adjectives. At times, in poems like Your Man, the poem continues with an extra stanza while the reader is gobsmacked with an in media res ending like "Your man hurls light at my skin/and forgets your name when that's what I need." But "Life According To Motown" is a greatest hits collection of a poet doing her 10,000 hours. These are the poems of a girl whose father died too early. A child kidnapper, a pedophile father and the other woman dwell in this world where a girl with beautiful brown eyes endures the suffering that accompanies efforts to dye her eyes blue and where the boys who slow dance with her drool in her ear and sing Smokey Robinson off-key. But Smith's jukebox always cues a glorious Motown single, that hope that love will stay, that the "fine thang" with the wavy hair will walk across the dance floor to ask the girl with poems hidden under her blanket to slow dance to "Just My Imagination." When the music fills her and she finds her sweet spot on the dance floor, Patricia Smith soars.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-10-18 00:00:00 Tristen Waters 811.54 S6563L 1991