Book reviews

In Sisters Across Oceans, these poets affirm self-determination, empower their will to survive, fight back, change, inspire conscience, evoke consciousness, and offer courage. It is time again for Black women to heed their voices, and coalesce their creative power to challenge the ever-shifting, global landscape.- Karla Brundage, editor of Sisters Across Oceans

In graceful language, Takara attunes us to the inherent truths that emerge when we stop, look, and listen to the interconnectivity of all life forms… This is a book of haiku using the genre of Japanese Zen sensibility, to press our minds, flush against the most mundane aspects of life to apply the sensorial process…

In a debut both raw and beautiful, Day forges a numinous transcendence of the past by embracing the journey onwards. These poems celebrate finding voice, birthing identity, and not only naming one’s own truth, but also bravely, yet kindly, honoring the voice that names this truth.- Abigail Shaffer, author of Children of the Country Leanna’s…

The history of African American Attorneys is important to document since they were at the forefront of fighting for civil rights and equality. African American Attorneys in Hawai`i is a powerful and timely read given that our first African American President is from Hawai`i, and a lawyer.– Stephanie Stokes Oliver, former editor of Essence magazine,…

This is a pioneer memoir about a neglected slice of Hawai`i judicial history. In this unique, insightful, and compelling book, written by the first African American woman judge in the Hawaiian Islands, Simms candidly reveals the cultural and political events and forces on the Mainland, and the diversity, crime, and social problems in the Islands that…

Kathryn Takara has known rivers, trees, oceans, mountains and volcanoes. Her latest collection of poetry Tourmalines: Beyond the Ebony Portal solidifies her role as a true multi-culturalist. The learned scholar, poet, professor and author came of age in the segregated south and continued to thrive and create through the civil rights movement, the new Black…

If this new book of excellent poetry doesn’t convince the Gov. of Hawai`i to name Kathryn Takara the state poet laureate, nothing will. She already has that title on the mainland.– Ishmael Reed, Author, Ishmael Reed Publishing Company The lyrical poetry of Pacific Raven mingles the ethereal with the corporeal. Exploring timeless philosophical questions, Takara…

Not only does this important and fascinating biography of Frank Marshall Davis track the poet from his humble beginnings to his admission to the American literary canon, but provides fresh information about the music, literature, politics, sports, and sexual mores of the period of the 1930’s and ’40s. Those on the right, who have criticized the president for his…

Whether the action takes place at a black college in Tuskegee or a village in China, Takara proves once again that she no longer belongs to the United States, but to the globe, no longer captive of the fickle trends of American letters.– Ishmael Reed, Author, Critic, Playwright Between Alabama and Ka’a’awa there is a…

Poets forge and foster hope. Is present-day Zimbabwe worth a song? Well, Kathryn Takara forces us to believe so: “Creative melodies of possibility flash across the darkening horizon lit by evening fires.” She predicts that the Great House will rise again from its current political mess. Listen to this great American poet, and you will…

Kathryn Waddell Takara’s free-verse poetry collection, Shadow Dancing: $elling $urvival in China, is an intriguing look at China’s awakening… [it] takes the reader on an unforgettable and timely journey of cultural differences and similarities, answers and questions.– Barbara Route, NLAPW Tampa Branch