POSTCOLONIAL LOVE POEM - NATALIE DIAZ

Now we’re talking. I got myself back into that place where I’ve started too many books at one time so they all are going slower than I like. Paradoxically, this is when I tend to read the most poetry because it’s short and I can get the feeling of finishing something. That’s why the last two books here have been contemporary poetry. This one was much stronger. Diaz is a Mojave poet who writes sharp poems about her family. Due to her tribe’s desert location, she writes often and beautifully about water and rivers. The longer poem, “exhibits from The American WAter Museum” is perhaps the standout, it circles back and back to images of water and rivers and flowing and the well never runs dry. There are also several poems and allusion to her brother, which I also found very moving. She captures the sadness and scariness of a loved one in psychosis perhaps better than anyone I’ve ever read. The more political poems hit for me. The line, “Race is a funny word. / Race implies someone will win, / implies, I have as good a chance of winning” sound like Gil-Scot Heron, as does, “...I am doing my best to not become a /

Museum / of myself.” The line, “If you are where you are, then where/are those who are not here? Not here.” is such a chilling and poetically beautiful distillation of the native holocaust. I’m not as good at reviewing poetry, all I can really say is that lots of these poems had real bars, lines I’ll turn over in my head for a while. I gotta make sure I check out more Diaz.