I am not a poet and I know it, which aside from the old “Roses are red, violets are blue” formula, is about as far as I can go in things poetical. In freshman English at
But you don’t have to be a poet to enjoy good poetry. You don’t even have to know what iambic pentameter is to spot the difference between pleasing rhyme and doggerel.
When longtime Austinite Mariann Wizard asked if I would be interested in reviewing her autobiography in poems, “Sixty,” I hesitated. My reviews mostly concentrate on non-fiction Texana, I told her. Still, she offered to send a copy for me to take a look at and I agreed. (Interestingly enough, she was an old friend of cartoonist-historian Jack Jackson, discussed in the previous entry in this blog.)
One reason I assented was that I knew something of her story. A bright
Actually, Wizard did most of the sweeping. She was one of the founders of the iconoclastic underground newspaper called The Rag in 1966 (merely possessing the first issue got me unceremoniously thrown off campus at
In 1967, Vizard was murdered while working as a clerk in a convenience store in then
One of the 60 poems in this collection, written a year after his slaying, deals with Vizard. Others range from a topic familiar to all Austinites – traffic congestion – to the seasons. A few of the poems are as steamy as a late May afternoon after a thunderstorm. All of them, from traditional verse to haiku, invite reading and reflection.
In addition to Wizard’s wizardry words, her longtime friend Scout Stormcloud took the color images that add to the book’s visual appeal.
Published by Lulu.com, an on-line publisher, the 100-page book is available for $39.95 or at $15.95 for a digital download. For more details, contact Wizard at awizard@awizardslife.com
2 comments:
We have in common being punished for reading the Rag in high school. Ah, fond memories.
Wizard's book is fantastic. I've read it a couple of times and seem to get a little more from her poetry with each reading.
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Mike:
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