Books by Lorenzo Thomas

Dancing on Main Street  / Sing the Sun Up / Chances Are Few

*   *   *   *   *

The Cruelty of Age 

in Lorenzo Thomas' “Tirade”

A Critical Analysis  by Van G. Garrett

To mature in age is to see the world change and reinvent itself. An experience that makes one wise, elated, melancholy, and fearful. It is the infusing and blending of the bitter and sweet, which produces a metaphorical wine, imbibed or rejected.

Widely-published poet Lorenzo Thomas, known for his instrumental role in the Black Arts Movement, explores the life-altering ‘wine-making process’ in “Tirade” taken from his latest book Dancing on Main Street :

In the poem’s invocation the reader discovers “old age is cruel” and it supplies fearful uncertainty, trepidation.

The functionality of the poem, however, works well, as its reflective tone narrates ironies and contrasts with lips pressed by maturity and experience that illustrates growing old is not a completely cruel phenomenon.

Lines like, “This day will pass without/ The birth of a regret,” “ the blossoming of a sorrow,” “These passions make your life last longer”, and “Arms weakened, / Your heart grows stronger” create a stream of consciousness that is descriptive and lucid. These lines are not pedantic ramblings searching for thoughts or flightless words looking for a nest, rather this meditative verse is aware of the brilliance and power of poetry and it skillfully utilizes deliberate pauses and well-structured line breaks for emphasis and pacing.

Additionally, “This day will pass without/ The birth of a regret” exemplifies how Thomas not only crafts the opposites “passing” (or death) and “birth” (or life), but he enjambs the line to create the motif of being pregnant with ideas of regret, fear, and sorrow, explored in forthcoming lines, where he contends uncertainty perpetuates life and causes one’s heart to grow stronger. If one is not wise he/she may shun these occurrences and “finally sort everything out/ And end with nothing/ Left to fear tomorrow”, a revelation life and uncertainty is synonymous. 

Lorenzo Thomas’ “Tirade” is a poem that comments on growing old—gracefully. It is a wise poem that “clings to you like a child to her broken doll,” and unlike a “traditional” tirade it allows the reader (young or old) to become empathetic, because he/she has the luxury of processing lines that have the capacity to move with a delirious momentum. A momentum not only found in “Tirade,” but a jetting and spiraling magnetism experienced in 143 other pages “wine-pressed” with maturity and experience in the vineyard of Dancing on Main Street.

*   *   * 

Lorenzo Thomas is a recipient of two Poets Foundation awards and the Lucille Medwick Prize. He is a founding member of the Umbra workshop, and his poems and reviews have been published in Callaloo, African American Review, The Paris Review, and elsewhere.

Van G. Garrett, a writer, photographer, and teacher from Houston, TX can best be described as a “contemporary courier of creativity.”  Garrett, a 1999 graduate of Houston Baptist University, has a BA in English (with an emphasis in creative writing) and Mass Media (with an emphasis in print) which he has utilized as demonstrated by his various publications and honors.

He was awarded the Danny Lee Lawrence prize for poetry in 1999, a 2002 Callaloo Creative Writing Fellowship for poetry, and his poems have appeared in Rolling Out, Life Imitating Art, Swirl, Drumvoices Review, Curbside Review, Shanks’ Mare, Urban Beat, E! Scene and elsewhere.

His photography has appeared in Source, has been contracted by Capitol Records, and has been on display at the Museum of Fine Arts of Houston.

v.g.garrett@usa.net