Mental Silhouette by Renair Amin

Publisher/Date:  Dodi Press, May 2011
Genre: Poetry
Pages:  82
Website:  http://www.renairamin.com

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Renair Amin’s MENTAL SILHOUETTE comes in many shades of love, pain, anger, and finally, light.

Divided into four colorful sections, the poems found in Silhouette read like a diary of Amin’s innermost feelings and opinions – as an author, spoken word artist and minister.

First is the Red Shadows section, featuring poems about the splendor of love.

My wish is that I will always love you
Even when faces have changed
And presence is no more
That we will revert back to memories of joy and bliss

The darkness emerges in Amin’s Blue Shadows and Black Shadows, including powerful verses about life’s disappointments in people and society. The aches are palpable.

I feel like I am drowning beneath the sound of thunder
You have no clue what it is like to be me
There are times when things swallow me
Times when the gallows be hanging me

THE DEVIL WILL NOT BREAK ME

Ending on the best note, the glow of White Shadows is the brightest. Amin offers the hope and peace she’s found within spirituality. These poems seem her most personal.

As I lie down before you
Penetrate my soul because I
Know what I want
But tell me what I need
Saturate me with unfound knowledge
Humble me into you because I am proud
Strengthen me because I’m weak

In Mental Silhouette, Amin shares her journey through her work, her jewels that allow her to release her experiences and put them into an effort that is moving, to say the least.

Reviewed January 2012

Suite 69: Black Lesbian Erotica Volume II by Billie Simone

Publisher/Date:  AppleTree Publishing, Oct. 2007
Genre:  Poetry
Pages:  61
Website:  http://billiesimone.wordpress.com

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

Laden with swagger and bravado, SUITE 69: BLACK LESBIAN EROTICA VOLUME II by Billie Simone wastes no time in telling you what she wants.

That is a turn-on, as are her poems that reveal emotions from a masculine lesbian standpoint. In Simone’s own words, “They come from my mind, my heart, my pussy, and my soul.”

Some of the poems deal with heartbreak, as evidenced with “suite memories,” where a player laments a lost love, while “u say” sees her confronting a trifling lover. And “after da love has gone” echoes the sounds of missing the one you love.

Femmes, if you want a stud talking sweet in your ear, read poems like “mama, may i”, and “I wanna f**k you so bad.” Just try to resist the words of “talk 2 me”, if you dare:

I want your
mouth
to say the
words I need to hear
say them
and mean them…
say them
with your eyes
open wide
staring deeply
into mine

A writer as well as a skilled photographer, Simone is smooth as silk with the come-ons in Suite 69. The poems come from a brash but heartfelt place, feeling as if you’ve entered a stud’s mind.

Reviewed January 2012

Visions of a Cryptic Mystery: Volume One by Eternity Philops (June 2008 Pick of the Month)

Publisher/Date:  Black Tygre Publications, Apr. 2008
Genre(s):  Poetry, Short-Story
Pages:  126
Website:  http://www.eternity-philops.com

Rating: ★★★★★ 

A sweet feeling washes over you when reading VISIONS OF A CRYPTIC MYSTERY: VOLUME ONE, a vibe of spiritual and sexual serenity.

Author Eternity Philops’ Visions is a beautiful view from which readers won’t be able to tear their eyes away. Excellent in its form, approach and creativity, Visions captures your senses. Both poetry and prose encompass this brilliant array of work that speaks to black lesbians everywhere. Its unique charm lies in Philops’ poems that clinch the mind with a metaphysical theme and her short stories that engage the heart.

Visions is categorized by three fragments titled Love, Loss and Life. The first, Love, captures the emotion and physical aspects of affection, with stories concerning unrequited love in “Almost First Kiss” and love beyond time in “Black Lace.” The poems in this section compliment these stories with an air of “Cosmic Intimacy.”

“Come soar with me
Be my love
We will stroll across a plateau of clouds,
Bathed in iridescent rays of sunlight
We shall picnic on the billowed hills of heaven,
As the soft rustle of God’s whispers blows gently
in our ears.”

The next section deals with the facet of Loss, as evidenced by the stories “Other Side of the Moon,” a tale of two women in love who never quite become one, and in “A Luncheon Scorned,” where a woman finally gives a former lover her just desserts. In this section, the poems underscore the feeling losing the most important thing in your life, as evidenced in “A Slight Wind.”

“Her whispered nothings are sweet
their smog a pollution
of my atmosphere
I’ve inhaled to deeply
the toxins of her tongue
Lungs full of a lover’s lies
I asphyxiate
for lack of pure clean truth”

In the final part of Visions, Philops writes about Life in its candor. In “Bait and Switch,” a con-woman finally meets her match and a workaholic learns there’s more to life than business in “An Affirmative Action.” The remainder of her poems in this section vary in themes from creation to dreams.

“Can I be your poet?
Can I write your journey
upon the eclipse of your soul
along the shadow of your benighted thoughts”

Philops’ Visions is a delight to read. It swiftly grabs you from page one, enveloping the reader in colorful and sensuous expressions that you won’t find in most Black lesbian novels. The poems are concise, inspired works of art that Philops has clearly mastered. The prose is mired in its every-woman appeal, making the reader both laugh and long for love. Philops, who wrote the first volume of over an extensive period and has plans for more, compares writing to opening the soul’s window, inviting you to see the view.

From reading Visions, the sight is quite exquisite.

Reviewed June 2008

Where the Apple Falls by Samiya Bashir

Publisher/Date:  RedBone Press, June 2005
Genre:  Poetry
Pages: 77
Website:  http://www.samiyabashir.com

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

WHERE THE APPLE FALLS is a lovely book full of poetry and prose. The book is written in a cyclical journey through seasons, femaleness and its relationship to nature. Through this style of writing, Bashir is able to impart to her readers the importance of all that she is writing about. The poems deal with elements such as sexuality, sexual perversion, love, lust, female genital cutting, and domesticity.

The book takes the reader on a journey through birth and death and back again through lyrical poetry. In the book, she writes about what it means to be female and how it relates to the environment. Using imagery of the environment and relating it to the seasons, the reader is able to see how Bashir related femaleness to nature. This is seen in the beginning poem “Moon Cycling” which sets the mood for the rest of the book.

Where the Apple Falls is broken down into three sections. With each progression of the sections, the book shows more and more raw emotion on the part of Bashir. Starting with the calm “Of Saints and Suppers” and climaxing at the titled work “Where the Apple Falls.”

Bashir’s book of poetry is a memorable read. Each of the poems in this book is poignant and powerful and fit for goddess readers.

If you enjoy reading the works of brilliant poets, this book definitely for you.

Reviewed December 2005 by Nina J. Davidson