SPEED READING: Four Crescents / Norm Mattox
Four Crescents
Norm Mattox
Collapse Press
Review by
Lauren Parker
Welcome to Speed Reading, our fast, occasionally flippant, review column where we attempt to spread the love of a recent new release in a very short amount of time. We’ll take the time to find some incredible books, you spend your time reading some incredible books.
So, what’s Four Crescents about?
Four Crescents is about systemic racism, the fight of resistance, and the bold weapon of love.
And, who’s the author?
Norm Mattox.
What’s their deal?
Norm Mattox is a retired educator and a poet dedicated to holding and shaping love.
What’s a single reason to read Four Crescents?
Because you have held rage so deep into your marrow that you have never unballed your fist, the rage had no name, only shadows and artifice, and your skin has long since broken.
What are a couple more reasons to read Four Crescents?
Mattox.
If you’re a fan of these books, you should give Four Crescents a chance:
Never Catch Me / Darius Simpson
Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour of Chaos Theory / James Cagney
Scattered Arils / Dena Rod
A small taste of Four Crescents:
what separates us
when there are no more middles?
Haves versus haves not?
got versus getting got?
Ousted versus gentrified?
thems that’s thriving
versus
thems that’s surviving?
a runaway capitalist dream
versus
a tsunami socialist nightmare?
who will be the patriots
in the war against racism?
A little more from Lauren Parker:
These reviews are supposed to be speedy and short, but I’m really more of a long-winded, rambly type.
Once I had a storm in my chest. The lightning struck all of my organs and left great big scars on the surface of my skin. The rain sloshed when I walked and flooded my chest, my neck, and when I’d open my mouth the water would spill out. The air pressure made my ears pop over and over and over. The storm kept me up all night until finally I opened all the windows, flung open the doors, and let the thunder out. The storm burst out of me and rattled the glasses and stained the floors and shook the walls. The cats fled.
I woke up damp and empty, the sun doing its best to clean up the steps, the windowsills, the debris of the roof. I wrung out my shirt and heard the rain hit the floor.
Mattox made me feel that.
