Overview

He calls it plugging in. He ties his afro into a bun, swings his book bag across one shoulder and steps outside. He puts his headphones in, turns the music off and walks. If you see him you would think he is listening to music but he’s not. It’s his escape. He used to walk around, his head held high, smiling, and then the world found him. Quick conversations, judgmental stares, crooked smiles, he was losing himself. The Poet’s Song: Poetry from a troubled youth, is a collection of poetry that retells my life stories: a young boy yearning for a father, a teen grappling with death and sexuality, a college student struggling to find his place and purpose in life. Many of the stories will talk about the most vulnerable times in my life; others will just be whimsical poems with no meaning whatsoever. I share these stories not for myself, but for the next generation of dreamers who are labeled “troubled” or “different”. The collection of poems are meant to serve as a message that anything is possible if you try, and even if you fail, then at least you tried. After many years of pain, struggle, and hurt, I have learned that nothing beats failure except effort and whether one fails or succeeds comes down to his trying. This, then, is my try, my effort, my attempt.

REVIEW

Are you willing to give up what you love for who you love, even if the very thing is him? A beautiful line from Matthew Williams first work The Poet’s Song: Poetry from a troubled youth. A man who found himself “ashamed of his lack of privilege and identity” for the first time when he attended college despite all the odds stacked against him. This poetry book is an autobiographical work that sheds light on marginalized minority life in an easy to read, interesting and poignant manner.

I strongly believe that some of the poems would be more effective written in verse rather than prose, as there are a significant number of lost opportunities for the brilliant usage of line breaks.

There are vow worthy lines of beauty like “Forever and ever the two will be” which is repeated to great effect in one poem. In another poem about non-romantic love, Williams describes a place “where love is everywhere, but impossible to see”. This place is the slums, which he calls “the suicide slums”, a place of death and decay, where children are born to have short, cruel lives.

At points, this lovely collection is plagued by wordiness, but despite that, there is still a kind of “The Raven” (by Edgar Allen Poe) flow in the bulk of the words.

The imagery present in the collection will bring a curtain of sadness over the countenance. He tells us about the “gardens of teddy bears” where so many people were lost to violence. Williams concludes that “death walks hand and hand with life”.

Others of my favorite lines include: “I come from a place of immortality,” “I don’t want to be addicted to pain,” and “I could not force myself to eat, so I starved.”

Not only is this work informative, it is enlightening and will give you an inside look on some of the racial issues plaguing America.

Will definitely be looking forward to his next collection.