The Playground

by Don Martin

This collection of poems explores the little voices within us all. The irreverent humor we dare not speak. The big questions we are too afraid to ask. The answers we are not sure we want. This debut by poet Don Martin explores the idea that inside every adult is a child that has never quite grown up.

Genres: Poetry

68 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 13

Reviews

[Katrina]

I have spent the last month and a half working part time in a preschool. If I stood on my preschool's playground and watched the children play it would be like reading The Playground by Don Martin.

There is the child who is nothing but joy and comedy, smiling and bouncing through life.

There is the baby who is still growing, who hasn't yet found their place and is still too unaware to do anything but incidentally cause pain.

There are some children on my playground who are true brilliance. They will be running the world one day. Or they'll be so brilliant no one else will understand them and they'll fall through the cracks.

This is how this book of poetry reads. Some of the poems are pure brilliance, they make you feel like you're in the presence of something amazing. Some are dancing around you, silly and playful. Some are breaking your heart. Some just accidentally stuck their finger in your eye, but hopefully you learned a lesson as they did.

Martin's poems are not poems you're forced to dissect. They aren't poems you have to, in the words of Billy Collins, "tie to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of." If you want to investigate a little deeper a few have some interesting depth, and perhaps the author could have taken those few a little further. A handful of poems I felt like I was given an amuse-bouche when I ordered a steak dinner. But that amuse-bouche was still pretty yummy.

See the rest of my review here: http://imaginekatrina.blogspot.com/20...

[Rommy Cortez-Driks · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's an interesting range of topic and tone in this selection of poetry. A poem filled with wry and snarky observation of an ordinary event might precede one with a fragile sweetness to it. I suppose that must be part of the symbolism behind the title of this collection, where individual poems scatter like children do on the playground, some to rowdy activities and others to gentle pursuits. All in all an enjoyable collection.

[Linda Wininger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoughtful and witty, Don Martin's work incises and strips the veneer of familiar scenarios to reveal the stories beneath. Resonant with imagery and color, this diverse collection points a childlike finger at humanity, accepting absurdity while prodding curiously at the power granted to trivialities.