Namesake

Namesake feels like a fine-tuned watch, as time flows through this rewarding, tempered narrative. The prose poems the pieces are like lyrical snapshots of a larger world held together by silences. This memoir also shows how less is more. An example is the poem, Wonder Bread : Soft in white plastic. Red, blue, yellow balloons. White bread. Brown crust. Fresh/but not like food. Fresh as a lie you swallow. The twenty-three words expand. And the photographs in Namesake underscore how small moments, through language and images, can grow into an engaging register of feelings. Yusef Komunyakaa