My Old Man Was Always on the Lam
My Old Man Was Always on the Lamcontains powerful, moving, compassionate poems that spring out of the life of Harlem apartments and streets. It contains deeply felt, evocative poems of loss and mourning. In an era when too much work produced depends totally on the polished surface provided by the use of brilliant language. Tony Medina risks everything with his willingness to tear away the surface skin of relationships and life, to journey to that dark center where memorable poetry lives.My Old Man Was Always on the Lamis the work of a truly original and vibrant poet.<P> --Maria Mazziotti Gillan, author of the American Book Award-winningAll That Lies Between Us<BR>Demonstrating a combination of traits that gives him a voice like no one else, Tony Medina's poems are funny, intense, and tragic, and sometimes make you laugh until you cry. There's a terrible beauty in this book, a sparse and haunting music that stays with you. These poems are brave, and true, and well worth returning to again and again.<P> --Leslie Heywood, author ofPretty Good for a GirlandThe Proving Grounds<BR>Tony Medina infuses his signature wordplay with a heightened aesthetic urgency in these bare-boned, tender laments for his parents, extended family, and humanity or lack thereof. The old folks/In front of/My father's/Building are/ Buildings that/have been/Abandoned - these poems are sober brutal truths as pavement for a long ill-tempered sprint with death. And life. --Quraysh Ali Lansana, author ofThey Shall Run: Harriet Tubman Poems<BR>