We Are Young Magicians

This collection of passionate poems shares life. Through her truthful depiction of moments, attitudes and world views often unheard, Forman shocks and provokes. With her gift of rhythm and tone, she rocks the reader as if to say 'it's O.K.' The collection is divided into four sections, each subsequent section drawing on themes from the prior. Contemporary and timeless, her poems are proof that the personal is universal. In "I Will Speak Genius to Myself," she skillfully explores the cause and effect of the rage that often burdens African Americans by describing the aftermath of an audition. She contrasts hope and potential against a harsh, grey cement reality. It ends spitefully and without resolution, like so many of life's truths. Far from grim, Forman also offers hope. In fact she tells the reader exactly where to find it. In "Up Sister," a woman finds a renewed belief in her ablility to go on when the voices of African American women harmonize to symbollically rescue her fallen soul. She says look at our history and all that we have endured; look to each other; to sisterhood; to the human spirit and the will to survive. Throughout the book, Forman reminds us that a part of the magic we possess as African Americans is our ability to find strength in each other and our ancestors. But the magic is not only ours, it is a part of the human soul that transcends race. The magic is love's transforming property that allows us to see beyond the postmodern context of grey cement, and into the souls of others, as well as our own. Reading this collection was a pleasure, thank you.