Ten poems per subject, / and a hundred grouped haikus / right wrongs, rail, weep, pray.”
This seventeen-word description of J.A. Rooney’s collection of socially conscious poems, The Century Collection, is from the author himself.
The poet earns the nickname “Radical” by refusing to compromise in his rhetoric while observing suffering through the eyes of a multitude of victims and persecutors.Nearly all of these poems are grouped into broad categories: Life, Love, Tragedy, Poverty, Praise, and so on. The poet prefers to write about specific actual events, including Hiroshima’s destruction by the Enola Gay and the King’s Cross Tube tragedy, which is commemorated in a poem Prince Charles is said to have liked.
The poet doesn’t shy away from indicting a host of villains (by name) with his pen, or commemorating good people who met early demises. The structures feature end-rhymes and no terminal punctuation. The explanatory notes that accompany so many poems provide grounding context for each, notably improving comprehension and enjoyment. Some of the least affected pieces are less about mass tragedies or widespread societal problems than they are about the despair of individuals.
No one has ever erected a statue to those unfortunate enough to have survived failed eye surgery, but Rooney puts the reader squarely inside the head of someone in that situation in “Dark for Me”: “When at noon, the sun / Lit my life with fear / It was still dark and / All that I could see / Were dark explosions / Of mystery.”
Walt Whitman’s ebullient feeling of nostalgia in “Once I Pass’d Through A Populous City” is turned inside out in “The Runaway”:
“As he stalked along the street and I saw his frightened face / When he entered slow this city devoid of love or pity.”...
Todd Mercer
This seventeen-word description of J.A. Rooney’s collection of socially conscious poems, The Century Collection, is from the author himself.
The poet earns the nickname “Radical” by refusing to compromise in his rhetoric while observing suffering through the eyes of a multitude of victims and persecutors.Nearly all of these poems are grouped into broad categories: Life, Love, Tragedy, Poverty, Praise, and so on. The poet prefers to write about specific actual events, including Hiroshima’s destruction by the Enola Gay and the King’s Cross Tube tragedy, which is commemorated in a poem Prince Charles is said to have liked.
The poet doesn’t shy away from indicting a host of villains (by name) with his pen, or commemorating good people who met early demises. The structures feature end-rhymes and no terminal punctuation. The explanatory notes that accompany so many poems provide grounding context for each, notably improving comprehension and enjoyment. Some of the least affected pieces are less about mass tragedies or widespread societal problems than they are about the despair of individuals.
No one has ever erected a statue to those unfortunate enough to have survived failed eye surgery, but Rooney puts the reader squarely inside the head of someone in that situation in “Dark for Me”: “When at noon, the sun / Lit my life with fear / It was still dark and / All that I could see / Were dark explosions / Of mystery.”
Walt Whitman’s ebullient feeling of nostalgia in “Once I Pass’d Through A Populous City” is turned inside out in “The Runaway”:
“As he stalked along the street and I saw his frightened face / When he entered slow this city devoid of love or pity.”...
Todd Mercer
