Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea: Poems and Not Quite Poems
Particularly in light of the recent deaths of June Jordan and  Gwendolyn Brooks, readers might well look to Giovanni as  spokeswoman for the black experience. And, at times, she  captures it, effectively representing "all the women who said  Baby, Baby, Baby I know you didn't mean to lose your job...I  know you didn't mean to gamble the rentmoney I know you didn't  mean to hit me." A recent poem, "Have Dinner with Me," written  after the World Trade Center collapsed, is a modern masterpiece.  Unfortunately, too many of these poems, though themselves  strong, seem intent on rehashing the 1950s political climate.  And the "Not Quite Poems" predominate. These proselike pieces  include childhood memoirs that draw the reader clearly into her  experiences, and there is a delightful spoof on what the movie  of Harry Potter should have been, but elegiac tributes and  political diatribes fare less well. "I keep trying to learn  something new so I can share what I am learning," she writes in  a letter-poem to a convict on death row. While the effort is to  be praised, she too often comes up with insights readers have  absorbed a long time ago. For larger collections.Rochelle  Ratner, formerly with "Soho Weekly News," New YorkCopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.