Multitudes: Poems Selected & New

The poems of this sixth collection vary from near-religious ekphrases on Marc Chagall paintings (from Stations in a Dream) to the poet's not exactly sensitive ""Mojo Mamba"" (""My johnson got a reputation""). If most of the poems don't reflect such poles of subject matter and diction--tending much more toward the former--the possibility of having them together seems to be the point here. Having put in 15 years of factory work before earning a B.A. and M.F.A., Weaver now holds an endowed chair at Boston's Simmons College. Many of the poems are well-constructed free-verse autobiographies, delving into the speaker's misspent youth, conditions on the steel mill floor, or simply describing ""The Poet Reclining"" or ""Going to Church with C.W."" Together, they describe a late '60s-early '70s coming of age and intellectual awakening, one that culminates in a series of ""Lamentations"" and in the book's final poem, from a section of new work. ""Composition for White Critics Who Think African American Poets Cannot Work in Contexts of Pure Concerns for Language ,"" (its full title clocks in at 60 words) is dedicated to Jorie Graham, and attempts to parody the long-lined style and circumlocution of her recent books: ""such/ burdens as being less than an adult require the synthesis of forms, this grove of pointed hedges where all time/ changes and gain or you lose or you understand there is no death."" While the book as a whole is not quite a successful challenge to the literary powers-that-be, Weaver's stories of hardship and joy ring clear and true. (July)