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BOOK REVIEW                                       DENT

   which held the history
   & secret of crushed Indian bones
   & of clamoring moaning voices
   of unborn black children who were
   screaming semen of castrated nigga dicks
   & his look held the origin of ashes. . . .
                            (from "New York City Beggar")

Then on to a wonderfully visual conclusion which you have to read for yourself.
   The same sensibility is displayed in finely executed poems like "New York Streetwalker," "Winter Night Lyric," "Legon, Ghana, After Dark," "Snow & Ice" and "New York Black Disco Scene, 1976":

   here earth smells
   have no place or meaning
   here no innovative black language
   no human love given
   but tongue-in-cheek-chic
   fashion plate givenchy/chanel
   number five/monsieur rochas
   english leather
   hear chit-chat of ice cubes
   with no memory of who murdered
   fred hampton
   snatched away that
   beautiful light. . . .
                (from "New York Black Disco Scene")

   Quincy Troupe's extroverted and humorous work reflects the poet's love of the prodigiousness, the excesses of language-characteristics I have always thought of as particularly Afro/linguistic, stemming from the African oral tradition. Rhythm, sound and narrative skill are the key elements, buttressed by a feeling and reverence for history, the genius of black music and memory. Troupe's style is not particularly introspective, but the poems work in this excellent collection which spans the best of his work throughout several periods.

                                               Tom Dent