Rift: Poems

by Forrest Hamer

Rift, the third collection from poet and psychologist Forrest Hamer, engages hauntingly with separations and reconciliations that are both personal and socio-historical. Hamer draws on his American experience―including his youth in Goldsboro, North Carolina―and his African heritage―including the tragic conflicts between Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda―to investigate memories, stories, and the way in which a poem is a “hopeful body.” Yusef Kumunyakaa has described Hamer’s poems as “calls into our modern wilderness that demand heartfelt responses,” and Al Young compares them to “a Robert Johnson blues or a Thelonious Monk ballad; [they] linger in the blood long after they enter the inner eye and ear.”

Genres: Poetry

58 pages, Paperback

First published March 9, 2007

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book, and if you want a more elaborated take on it, look up my review on Xantippe Magazine's online site. The writing here is so nicely modulated. Hamer has the ability to engage with the most painful subjects with great intelligence and grace and insight. It's pretty straightforward formally, but the writing reverberated in my mind long afterward.