Lorenzo Thomas. Dancing on Main Street

Lorenzo Thomas. Dancing upon Main Street. Minneapolis: Coffee House P 2004 144 pp $1500

Dancing upon Main Street the late widely-published author and critic Lorenzo Thomas is a awful book that embodies form, entire imagery, and language--the key ultimate parts of great poetry. Thomas, at the time of his death an English professor at the University of Houston-Downtown, had also written three earlier volumes of poetry, Chances are scarcely any The Bathers, and Sound Science. A recipient of sum of two units Poets Foundation awards and the Lucille Medwick Prize, his scholarly reviews and essays were published nationwide, and he was a founding member of the Umbra workshop and a major figure in the Black Arts Movement

The metrical compositions in Thomas's last volume include a certain quantity of previously anthologized in such preeminent journals as Callaloo: A Journal of African-American and African Arts and alphabetic characters African American Review, Xavier Review, Bombay Gin, African American Voices in Texas, and The Paris Review. mustered here, they are categorized in five distinctive chapters that provide an eclectic musicality that dances from page to page as Thomas skillfully leads the reader with seemingly effortless strides. "Any Place You've at any time Been," "Rituals and Improvisations," "The Simplest of All Mysteries," "Resistance as Memory," and "Dangerous Doubts" are metaphorically the feet that cause us to shake, rumba, intermix salsa, tango, Lindy Hop, and break dance to the piece of poetrys that are truly the dance. The rich language and imagery of the metrical compositions in this volume arrest one's attention with captivating titles like "Morning Raga," "Guerrilla Girls," "Skunk Insulation," "Journey of 1000 Li," and "Dirge for Amadou Diallo."

The close tightlyed arrangement of the poems upon the page combined with Thomas's signature open tone engages the reader; lending the line of poetry to being read aloud. We are composeed by his words, hypnotized by the agency of the execution of clever writing, delighted through his satire and wit, and dumbfound in the manner he makes the mundane, trite, or unusual noteworthy and worth rereading--repeatedly. An example is "No, Don't earn Up":</p>

<pre> I watched her cast in a winding direction Her ribbons upon the floor She deposit her foot down. I asked her, as she make go rounded Toward the door "Where will you go?" "Crazy," she answered "And I insist upon driving myself." </pre> <p>"Whale Song" is another metrical composition that is magical when verbalized and obviously a commentary upon the "dog eat dog" mentality that many tribe daily exhibit. This poem inspires the reader to view life more vividly through focusing on abstractions and resources (natural and constructed) that society repeatedly takes for granted. We diocese the world through the writer's lense and we deliberate upon whether we are hunter or prey:</p> <pre> You just don't know by what means hard it is To be uncivilized You think that everyone you eat merits to be eaten

luncheon for me Means someone ain't coming home

in like manner what If breakfast might have been The tuna that ground a cure for cancer? Damn certain was tasty! </pre> <p>Dancing upon Main Street is an example of rhyme that does not feel like homework or catalogued catch phrases. It is writing that inspires and invigorates; by dint of definition superb! It splendidly clinchs true to what John Ashbery expresse upon the back flap of the book: "Lorenzo Thomas' metrical compositions have a graceful New York place of education nonchalance that can swiftly become a hard and cutting cutting side when he writes of the African American experience, especially in his adopted abode of Texas. 'This useless clairvoyance/is embarrassing,' he confides. nevertheless Thomas' brand of clairvoyance is not solitary useful, but beautiful."

Van G Garrett

Houston, Texas

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