It's been a while, poems published. More rejected. Ideas all floating through my fevered brain.
Here is a very lovely review written by Jim Lewis of Verse Virtual. I hope he also posts it there! Thanks Jim!
Book reviewed: “Viruses Guns and War” by Dotty LeMieux (Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2023)
Reviewed by Jim Lewis, editor of Verse-Virtual and author of 5 books of poetry.
It takes courage and confidence to write about current social issues because they are, by nature, controversial. Who better then, than a poet, to be the one to take on topics like "Viruses Guns and War"? In this engaging and compelling collection of poems, LeMieux guides us through the challenges and conflicts of our nascent century by giving us glimpses, flash reminders of what we are living through.
The grimness of THE pandemic is captured is such simple lines as
the police are too busy
confirming deaths
on park benches
to answer calls
about unsanctioned basketball
games in the park.
She deftly pairs the COVID-19 pandemic with the pandemic of death and violence that rages on the streets of America in "Double Pandemic":
American knee of oppression
on my neck.
Virus of death
in my lungs
I can’t breathe.
Poem after poem, LeMieux shows us who we are, what we have done and are doing to each other — bigotry, selfishness, and violence dominating our lives, and still she manages to weave in threads of hope. This collection of poems made me uncomfortable, as it should make anyone think about how we fit into the patterns of avoidable destruction that surround us. Good writing does that, and this is some of the best I have read.
