This book, published by the Iron Horse Literary Journal of Texas Tech University, exhibits what's wrong with much of the publishing world today, and particularly in the literary journal world. Each page of the slim book has a sentence or paragraph with the author commenting on her place in the world as a black author and daughter of immigrant parents. While the comments are somewhat interesting, it reads more like someone's stream of consciousness journal writing. Journals and publishers are bending over backwards to provide access to authors who would have traditionally been barred access because of their racial or social or gender identity. But the effort expended in this acrobatic routine would be better served in finding quality writing as opposed to just locating any author from these groups with anything to say. The same could be said for the poetry offerings in most literary journals these days, as the poems don't end up meaning much of anything. They are more of a word salad with he emphasis on playing with the sounds of the words as opposed to any internal meaning. If there is an internal meaning, it seems the authors go to great lengths to conceal it. The Whitmans and Wordsworths of the world are turning in their graves over what is published these days. None of this to say that Freda Epum, the author here, doesn't have something to say or that what she says should be minimized, but I'd rather she work a little harder at putting together a coherent narrative to say these things rather than dusting off her journals and submitting them for publication.

1/2 bone! ( )