We Are the Young Magicians

This collection introduces a 24-year-old poet who would appear to be a direct descendant of Nikki Giovanni and Ntozake Shange. Forman is not exactly a feminist, but she writes from a tradition of strong matriarchal women who can ``lose all your children but one / and still be able to stand in the shower.'' Her poems are alternately fascinating and infuriating. At her worst she's angry and didactic, toying with the same racial tensions that the media already plays up ad infinitum: ``i step on any white man / in my path / to gain power for my people / n not only step on him / but stomp him so deep in the ground.'' Her African American jive (and spelling) seems contrived. Yet there are many pieces in which real emotion comes through. Her poems about the Gulf war are some of the finest written on the topic thus far; they assume the viewpoint of someone up all night flipping TV channels, walking the streets, a woman whose ``brother'' is off fighting even though the war's supposed to be over. Here, indeed, Forman achieves a poetry that will ``ride the bus / in a fat woman's Safeway bag / between the greens n chicken wings.'' (Apr.)