Last we talked, we discussed what it means to be a poet and how it relates to joining the Great Conversation. One can produce new a new poem for the world and comment on another artist’s poem by making an allusion, or by writing on the same topic, or by only writing on what someone else has written.

In my last post, I shared a poem that was inspired by another poet. I reference Charles Bukowski’s poem, “So you want to be a writer?” by writing on the same topic and by making an allusion to his poem in the title I used. Additionally, I use a line from him as an epigraph, and I mimicked some of his language usages. All of these are ways to join the 'Great Conversation.' However, if you don’t like to write poetry, that’s pointless.

Another way to join the 'Great Conversation' is to write about someone or someone’s work. For example, a short book review is a way to join a conversation by telling why they should or shouldn’t read a book. In doing this, you, the reviewer, has to engage with the writing in a way that you are commenting on the book’s composition, quality, validity, insightfulness, merit, and enjoyability, etc, but where do you start?

There are no set guidelines on how to write a book review. You can talk about one topic, such as how you simply loved or hated the book and why. Or you can talk about multiple aspects of the book.

For example, you can talk about the merit of the book through giving examples of what the book strived to do and how it didn’t live up to those expectations, or how the book handled a politically relevant issue well or not, and why that gives the book merit or not. You can talk about the author’s background and inspiration, if relevant, then discuss how these aspects are insightful when reading their book.

While what you talk about will vary from other reviewers, there are two things that won’t change in terms of writing a book review.

• The length. A short book review is typically 500 words or less, while a long book review is no longer than 1,500 words.
• A book review always starts off with a citation ( an example is given later).

Since the National Book Awards Festival was held at Sam Houston State University, recently, I’ll use 2017’s long list for poetry as an example. For the 2017 longlist, I chose to read Mai Der Vang’s collection of poems called, Afterland. When I started the book, I noticed the topic was non-fiction because it recounts the experiences of Vang’s life, which is extremely relevant to current events.

Here is what I decided to write about Afterland:

Vang, Mai Der. Afterland. Review by Savanah Burns. Graywolf Press, 2017, 98 pages.

Mai Der Vang is an editor, lecturer, essayist, and poet. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry, Virginia Quarterly Review, New Republic. Afterland is her first collection of poems. Her poetry has merited the 2016 winner of the Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets and has made it onto the 2017 longlist for poetry and a finalist for the National Book Awards.

Afterland is a collection of poems about the aftermath of a democratic campaign against communism; in 1964 to 1973 America supported the Lao Government in suppressing the civil uprising with the Pathet Lao. Support led to bombings, along with other acts of war that left Lao’s landscape marred. Vang captures how the people experienced oppression from a monarch, a loss from war, as well as a marred memory like that of the land. It would take generations before healing came.

There are strong themes throughout the collection. Vang incorporates themes of loss, death, being exiled, migration, oppression, tradition, rebirth, resilience, song, voice, water, and writing. The themes that repeat throughout the collection add to a jarring and beautiful account.

Vang’s writing and imagery are rich with juxtaposition, which illustrates her exhaustion of similar images and paradoxical themes. The images usually show a paradox: life in death, or a beginning in an end, or construction in destruction. Vang uses a string of associated images in “Soujourn with Snow”; “It’s like tiny diamonds / that turn to water / taste like ice Try it ” (26).

Another example of juxtaposition can be seen in “Water grave,” which uses gardening to portray growth and decay. A similar image pairs the weight of a fallen city to that of fallen snow, which is heavily symbolic; winter represents death, while the snowflake denotes this idea of a frozen tear; “Every snowflake a small city / Falling on the eyelash” (Vang 37).

The use of juxtaposition throughout Vang’s collection helps exemplify the paradoxical and complex feelings and challenges refugees experience. The entire collection of poems shows one significant paradox; Vang incorporates how refugees are voiceless, yet how they retain their voices.

“Afterland,” parallels the structure of Afterland, in that both the poem and the collection have five parts. Each is marked with five, stand-alone epigraphs. At first glance, they are easily overlooked, much like the voices of the migrating Laotians. When these five epigraphs are compiled, Vang is able to express that, despite the oppression of a monarch and inferno of war, Laotians endure; “My vellum remains” (82). These epigraphs offer insight into the collection’s structure, as well as the spirit a refugee must have.

Overall, Vang’s collection is important because her experiences bring insightfulness into the life of a refugee. Today, there is hostility towards Syrian refugees. I wonder how similar their experiences are to Vangs. How likely they too had to watch the destruction of their country, watch their children carry that memory into a new generation, with all the joy and pain that come with it. This is a relevant, moving collection of poems anyone would enjoy.

Now that you have an example of what a book review is, what it looks like, and know the basic two requirements (the length and citation), I challenge you to go forth and join the 'Great Conversation' by writing a book review over a book on the National Book Awards Short List.