A Day in the Death of Intolerance
by
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Marvel J. Warren, Sr. has written a book of poems that asks us to address the timbre of our times. He looks around his and our world and observes the mood and temperament and folly and the poisons that resurrect the abscesses of racism and imperialism and all manner of intolerance - he walks us through these but at the same time he does not stay there long. Through his magic of words he calls our attention to the need to repair, to heal, to succor.
Warren's method of placing words on a page is artistic and wholly in keeping with the thought he is sharing. To appreciate this, the reader must obtain the book and witness these visual diagrams as the review format doesn't allow such variations. For example, one poem is placed in a stacked format, each line containing only one word, so to share that the following traditional outline is needed: `disturbed/ as/I/collided/in/shadows/of/shallowly/life/fright/came/to/arouse/my spirit/and/ secure/my/forever/in/false/conceptions/of/myself and/i/answered/the/phone/ anyway. ’
Another example may place the reader more in line with the beauty of his style:
THE GREAT ESCAPE
the same fan spreading the flames of opportunity reaps
the spoils of an achiever's egotistical cravings
no one remembers the time before when the sweetness of sugar
brought no harm
i was surplus life to them and brought to live in the land
of disenfranchised patriots
of cruelty no one could try to understand
of cruelty only a hell has permission to bring
with so much faithful discouraging doubt shouting at
windowpanes of my window
vulnerability waged into my freedom
between the freedoms taken away
i think one of the worst punishments of all
is to be given the need to feel special
with no way to accomplish being more
than the dirt on the bottom of someone's boot
beat down without a reason to be, i say,
"i have not been forsaken
and something extraordinary is happening."
given the sight of those who have paid their dues
i leave the company of believers in that "paid for" everlasting life
who reap the prophets of a valueless soil
who receive their feelings form fearing to fail to suffer their fears
no one remembers the time before when the sweetness of sugar
brought no harm.
Warren enhances the moods of his thoughts by inserting black and white photographs of trees illuminated by a strange, otherworldly, near ghost like light. He knows how to create a visceral response from his reader, which is what he seems to be requesting as we read his poems.
Grady Harp, December 12 2012 - an Amazon’s Hall of Fame Customer Reviewer
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About the Book
Poetry in Marvel‘s point of view gives a person's mind a place to heal without incident - a place to be, an escape from life's daily entanglements and disappointments, culminating to that of “a lost soul begging for a bite or a hit or a taste or swig of something to make it through another moment.” In other words, if there is a definitive cure for misery and boredom, the “awe and wonder” found in poetry is the foundation on which it stands.
The encapsulation of this idea is the driving force behind the series of poems called "A Day in the Death of Intolerance." The unique design, construction and intention of each poem combine with the others aim to create a sobriety so ever intoxicating it measures up to the listening of a person’s favorite songs.
In this book, you will experience words capturing and reflecting life’s sounds, sights and feelings lifting off of printed pages to form perfectly shaped expressions to unravel the heaviness of a heart still grasping at words to communicate, per chance to be heard. In this book, you will also find lyrics crafted into phases promoting humility and harmony thus humanizing the conflicts caused by concepts that strain relationships.
There is guidance throughout the book, generated by an extremely long “selection and placement” process to turn this series of poems into what can be considered an amazing poetic journey through time and space. These are poems that support mindfulness at the level of compassion that is required to remove personal disharmony and nourish the behavior behind effective communication.
This book is a collection of 63 poems written in a variety of formats. The reader will, though requiring patience and a good-faith effort, start to appreciate and gain a fresh understanding of the difference between poetry and prose; this realization automatically inspires readers to witness the beauty of poetry that sits outside the "box" and purpose of prose – a box in which the mind is limited by a design to proliferate concepts for which we find our lives fixed or stuck. As a person progresses through this book, they will find themselves participating in a new, soft, awaking of their imagination. Such an awaking can tame the emotions springing forth from the annoyance of disappointment and distraction, thus leaving a person in the best of positions/attitudes to elicit from her or his environments the kind of support in which she or he has been searching.
This book’s intention is to assist readers with being their own composers, their own groups/ bands/ orchestras and “iPhone-type-vendors” for tunes they enjoy. Poetry (reading and writing) is more than words borrowed from concepts to make a person think; it reaches beyond the borders between whatever purgatory one has to endure in this life and whatever heaven, there might be for each reader /writer – it is the finding of that missing thing, which enables continuous adventure, intrigue and joy as she or he learns to bathe “in the still quiet and forever waiting.”
About the Author
Mr. Marvel J Warren Sr. is an author, which has taken all his lessons in life and thrown them into a whirl-pool; along with all the practices and workshops and religions, he has engaged in over the past 30 years, he gathers into his writings his note worthy experiences. His sole journey has been to discover and access a path of personal freedom and independence. As an author his goal is to share the fruits of his exploration with others.
In working to free himself of his own turmoil that may be contributed to experiences of family life and sibling rivalry, peer competition, military life, married life, fatherhood, federal government employment, and everyday life filled with acts of prejudice, mostly due to race bigotry, he has made note of what is problematic for all people at the intersection of individualism and self-limitation that befalls us all.
Born in the south, he was raised in the north – Brooklyn New York – his travels after leaving New York freed him from the mentality of being stuck in the type of knowing that bars a person from living the experience of life as a private venture, which always leads a person out of the hands of common slavery. This Mr. Warren says, leaves a person free to pursuit their own truth: Mr. Warren also makes note in his writings: … freedom has a cost; a person has to be willing to work for their freedom, first.