The Blue Armchair by John Froy Malika Booker and its blend of humanity

and its blend of humanity and power make it one of the best first collections of poetry to come out of America in years

I think I was one of the poets who became convinced of the need for change

"I wouldn't know anything about that

With each new collection

But it is through the purgatorial leavening of pain that the narrator works towards a more devotional life

The Blue Armchair by John Froy Malika Booker and its blend of humanityIn The Blue Armchair, his third collection, John Froy seeks to rediscover his mother after her death in poems widely and wildly various. But which mother? The inspiring painter he hardly saw, a reckless mother he saw too much of? Or an ill, unhappy woman? These complications provide the background, but others too often take centre stage. We meet father, siblings, step parents, a grandmother and a tragic grandfather, lovers and friends. In poems