The Summer of Black Widows

Sherman Alexie, a poet whose work is inscribed with joy, sacredness, laughter, and tears, issues in The Summer of Black Widows a vivid song of vicious and systemic harm, rageful lament, and finally the hearty buoyancy of creatively encountering the world. Face to face, skin to skin, Alexie's profound sense of tenderness gives weight and authority to the justice he speaks. An original voice, he gifts American life with a touch that heals blindness. Winner of the PEN/Hemingway award for his fiction, A Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, and a multi-year winner of the World Heavyweight Poetry Bout, Alexie is known to have read at age 3 and devoured Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath at the age of 5.

This book seems the most abstract of Alexie's works to date. Containing the same insightful, introspective and powerful images and descriptions as his past works, this one differs in that it is slightly less "in-your-face". Keeps the reader thinking, wondering what the underlying meaning of the work could mean. This is not a spoon-fed collection of easy to read poems. Keep this one around awhile for study and contemplation. Truly inspired.

This collection of poems is woven beautifully together. Like his other books of poetry and novels this book is thought provoking, humorous, disturbing and wonderful. Once again I am left breathless at the end of one of Mr. Alexie's book wanting more. I found myself weaving in and out of the book, reading one poem then returning to a previous poem because of the way they interconnected. A truely wonderful experience and cannot wait for the next release be it novel, poetry or film by this young talented writer.