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Open Source
Selected from two decades of work, the poetry in Warren C. Longmire's Open Source chronicles the complexities of language, identity, love and time. Ranging widely in style, with a lyric intensity rooted in the Philly landscape, this book reveals the interconnections between public and private history, a black man's daily struggle for self-acceptance and joy amidst "disastrous news and the grace/of each of arc of decay." Longmire addresses work in the tech industry as well as the gentrifying city as it grinds through a pandemic. At times raw, playful, painful and technical, Open Source is poetry alert to the particulars and subtle shifts from day to day in uncertain times, unafraid to grapple with the past inside the present.
128 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2021
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January 28, 2022
I love Warren C. Longmire’s Open Source. I’ve spent the last few years admiring Longmire’s poems, and this book (his first full length collection) is somehow even better than I could have expected.
These are open and surprising poems, with blood in every line. Shifting from confession, to wit, to empathy for all humans. I particularly love all the Philadelphia voices coming out at us: “The salt in our tall, cheap beer glasses / towering over the tumble of our lonely, folded hands.” And this: “The piss-stained drunk that forgot he’s visible. / The pack of wild children testing a voice even they are scared will crack ...” And this: “The roar of the motorcycle gangs / is the best way to divide the day’s beats, their faces black / with masks hiding from the breeze. / Meanwhile a boy yells at the air ahead of him / on a wobbly bike.”
Stunning work!
These are open and surprising poems, with blood in every line. Shifting from confession, to wit, to empathy for all humans. I particularly love all the Philadelphia voices coming out at us: “The salt in our tall, cheap beer glasses / towering over the tumble of our lonely, folded hands.” And this: “The piss-stained drunk that forgot he’s visible. / The pack of wild children testing a voice even they are scared will crack ...” And this: “The roar of the motorcycle gangs / is the best way to divide the day’s beats, their faces black / with masks hiding from the breeze. / Meanwhile a boy yells at the air ahead of him / on a wobbly bike.”
Stunning work!
Displaying 1 of 1 review