Street Smarts - Softcover

Major, Devorah

4.5

10 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1880684276 ISBN 13: 9781880684276

Publisher: Curbstone Books, 1996

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A stunning new voice in African-American poetry, Devorah Major in street smarts explores the hardships of life in the streets, the damage that is done there, and the strategies for survival. Hers is a powerful, affirmative voice that is joyful and proud.

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About the Author:

devorah major is an African-American poet, novelist, essayist, and teacher. She is the current Poet Laureate of San Francisco and the author of Brown Glass Windows, Open Weave, and Where River Meets Ocean.

From Library Journal:

Major's poetry is a potpourri of street jive, scat singing, blues, hip-hop, and rap-a decidedly nonliterary style that perfectly matches a world of "saturday night specials" and "two-bit twenty twos" firing in "hip-hop ranting rhythms/ with a bass oozi coming in." Always engaging and direct, major sees herself as the voice of African Americans and "mixed breeds" of Creole, Choctaw, or Fulani extraction, in skin tones of "auburn, cinnamon, copper/ cafe au lait, ginger, dun." She constantly reminds her mainstream Caucasian readers that these marginalized folk inhabit a "somewhere you don't live." Yet she refuses to glamorize a black street culture of physical abuse and incest where rape "is always a family affair" and the cocaine addict "roll[s] a crisp bill," inhaling the "snow queen" up his nose. Major (author of the novel An Open Weave, LJ 9/1/95) has a finely tuned ear that perfectly captures the idiom of the street, like the plaintive speech of the young woman whose friend "don't like the color a my mama." Recommended for all general collections.
Daniel L. Guillory, Millikin Univ., Decatur, Ill.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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