Book Review·Storybook｜POOR who won this year's "Forward Poetry Award"

On October 24th, this year's "Forward Poetry Award" in the UK was announced. My favorite poet Caleb Femi's poetry collection "POOR" won the "Best First Collection" award! I finished reading the poetry collection "POOR" long ago, and I wanted to write it out. I remembered the poetry collection "POOR" through the last article "The Sparkling Unknown II : Zong". I often read Asian poetry collections, and I also like the representative Mary Oliver or Louise Glüke. However, there are not many poetry collections written by African American poets. The poetry collection triggered by the "Zong Case" is the first draft of the first chapter. This time "POOR" To win the award, I have to recommend this collection of poems.

Similar to the "Zong Case", the poetry collection "POOR" is also from the United Kingdom and is based on a collection of poetry by the British neigborhood. There are many African-British people living in this neighborhood. Many are Caleb's friends or children. However, in his poems, these childhood playmates or current friends have died one by one, some because of police violence and some other reasons, such as danger. social relationships, wrong life choices, etc... Caleb's poems have become lamentations, mourning the once innocent lives that have passed away.

Like the famous "Citizen" before, the poetry collection is interspersed with images, but the poetry and images are not much better than "Citizen". The poetry collection describes the apartment buildings, the African-British people who lived there, who met and supported each other in the buildings...

Such themes are not uncommon, but not everyone can make the poems on this theme arouse readers' empathy and thinking in the lightness, agility, and deep sadness and infinite sadness. In his poems, every passing of a person he knows is like a conversation between a broken soul and him that transpired into the air.

Many readers who are not familiar with the living environment of African-Americans may find it difficult to empathize with the life and emotional experiences described by the poets in this collection of poems. However, this kind of life can be seen in many places. I knew some street kids when I was a teenager. They come from different backgrounds and are not particularly poor children. However, if they mingle in the "jianghu" on the street, there will always be a higher chance of accidents and death; if these chances are Because of a society’s systematic oppression and errors, it is true that there will be shouts.

Poetry like this makes me think that art can still evoke ripples in people's hearts about the different ways of life in society in this way, which is its success; at least, not in the kind of extremely abstract and intangible The art of the mind. His poems describe groups that are almost at the bottom, from which beauty and pathos are refined and sublimated. Such poems are rare.

Sometimes I wonder, what about the bottom? What the poet shows us is people with clear love and hate. They have all been happy. Compared with people who are not at the bottom but have never been truly loved, whose life is more worthy?