Review: History Lessons from Robin Coste Lewis and Adrian Matejka

Thanks to the LA Times for the chance to write about how Lewis and Matejka make sense of the past in their two most recent books:

Perhaps the great (however obvious) lesson of the last several years — the waves of police violence against black men, the bitter and hate-fueled rise of Trump and worldwide xenophobia — is that we have not transcended and learned from history nearly as well as we might have thought. Maybe we need reminding. In two recent books, “Map to the Stars” by Adrian Matejka and “Voyage of the Sable Venus,” the 2015 debut by Robin Coste Lewis, black poets jog our collective memories, facing the distant and recent history of black Americans, asking us to try to see ourselves in their mirrors.

Read the complete review here.

Craig Teicher