The Call of Paradise
Majda Gama
Two Sylvias Press
Kingston, WA
(c)2023
Winner of Two Sylvias Chapbook Prize
It is refreshing to read work by poets who come to and through the English language from cultures and experiences beyond white Anglo-Saxon protestant backgrounds. Be that Native American, and frankly any "minority" voice BECAUSE how these other "voices" capture their experiences while also witnessing ours is cleansing.
Yes, cleansing. Far too many American poets write in a manner similar to how this country was portrayed in the Mel Gibson film The Patriot in which there were no black slaves and no Native tribes in a film where both groups IN HISTORY combined to outnumber European-born colonists and British troops at the time of the Revolutionary War. In the same way, when Robert Frost writes of being in the woods, those woods are empty canvases - they are devoid of whom inhabited them prior to Frost's birth. Prior to most "American writers'" births. And while the majority of poets in this country attempt to capture their experiences, their environments, their surroundings; they do so through their white person lens. And we, as a nation, are about to become a Minority Majority nation (despite the efforts of the MAGA and Trump and their White Nationalist ilk) so seeing things strictly through a "white lens" does not do our collective experience as Americans justice.
Ms. Gama, while neither beating a drum nor hammering a nail, presents experiences beyond - outside - and other with grace and calm expression. And her language is beautiful.
