My Own Silence

Poetry. African American Studies. Women’s Studies. At a time when the confessional mode has banished American poetry to one vast self- mirroring island, the work of Jeanne Powell nudges us again and again to break out of our little selves. Whether celebrating the triumphs of Australia’s champion aboriginal athlete Cathy Freeman, berating a hellish vacation in the Sierra foothills, disclosing the subtle and not so subtle pain of social injustice, or commemorating the powerful, dancing mother reared in the big band swing era, Powell rocks. Unfailingly, the open-hearted spirit of her prose and poetry allows us the re- experience our membership in one another.–Al Young, California Poet Laureate Emeritus