The first of Jaimee's book reviews runs in the Independent this week, a review of Rafael Campo's collection The Enemy:
The debate between free verse versus New Formalism has often been cast as the freedom fighters versus the forefathers, long-haired Whitmaniacs versus uptight syllable counters. But Campo's pulsing meter is simply his mode of poetic expression, not a loyalty oath to traditional values: He uses it advantageously in such poems as "Patriotic Poem," where the continual beat keeps things moving quickly, mirroring the rush to war. The poem gets at the crux of the political issue from the viewpoint most sacred to a poet: the abuses of the English language, the manipulated words, the complacent media and the quiet masses. "A metaphor lay beaten in the street/ while moonlight bathed it in white tears. The war/ on words had been declared, in language none/ could contradict."
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