The book is not topically or stylistically arranged, leaving the reader to wander through a wild garden of emotional and poetic imagery of various sorts.
Lenzi has a marvelous gift of imagery in places, as demonstrated, for example, by “Wishing Stone” and the haunting “Faustian Hustler.” He is capable of a wry and warmhearted tenderness, exemplified in “Reunion,” or in the sentimental love poem “Time Tunnel”. He never hesitates to say exactly what he thinks, and can be fiercely blunt. Still, when he puts his political anger aside for a few moments, as in his poem “Unnatural Order” on the Zimmerman/Martin case, his work has a deep and painful heart to it, one that gets past the simplification on either side to the real sorrow and loss at the core of the story. He can also see both sides of an issue on occasion, as when he praises the unfettered free market in some poems, but in others mourns furiously for the girls lost to the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, or condemns the soulless commercialism of a shopping mall.
However, he doesn’t put aside his political anger often, and his political poems too often lack the subtlety and wit needed to make them hit home. Political poetry is a tricky thing at best, and too much polemical anger, too much demonization of one’s opponents, tends to actually interfere with the force of the poem, and this applies no matter where on the political spectrum the poet actually rests. Also, the choice of poetic form should enhance rather than detract from the poem’s emotions – limericks in particular are not, for example, the best vehicle for political rage or despair. At times, the short-lined, rhythmic, rhyming style of most of Lenzi’s poetry combined with his lack of emotional subtlety gives the poems a simplistic, doggerel-like feel that takes away from their effect.
The author’s gifts for imagery and emotions are strong, and this collection has some well-written gems in it. Unfortunately, the heavy hand he uses for his political poems makes them more tiresome and less effective than they really ought to be.
Reviewed by Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader.