Seahorses

"The poems in Seahorses are honed as axe blades, and they deliver a witnessing blow, telling of detainment camps, exile, loss, and a silence 'worn/As coat and/Top hat.//Sorrow tucked/In the left/Breast pocket.' Animashaun's speakers are fluid, at times reprehensible, at other times eliciting deep compassion, testifying to the life of the 'sole/Black immigrant/On the cul-de-sac.' The tone of this collection is by turns apocalyptic and tender, and at times a playfulness appears, as when poems turn to Wonderland, and Oz, and a Lorca-like approach to the image emerges-- a dream 'Of goats painting/their hooves green, ' and 'Night/With a thousand yellow lights/Braids its hair/And bathes with waters/From dark village wells.' Seahorses is beautiful, disturbing, and sublime."
-- Diane Seuss