When I bought this I thought it would be a renga covering all 50 states. It's not; it's something more subtle. The collection records the reflections of the various poets on their season, place. or current events. Each poem, linked the the one previous to it, adds it's own little piece of America. The work as a whole ends up to be quite a bit more than the sum of its parts. I'd very much like to see more renga of this type. ( )

Renga is a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry which gave rise to the modern haiku style of poetry. The writers of this book have decided to use this collaborative form of poetry to compose a single book of 54 poems each written by a separate poet.

Because these poems are meant to make up one single collaborative poem, all 54 poems should be read in one shot. Each poem reads as a response to the preceding poem. The introduction even states that each poet was given about two days at the most to write his or her response (except, of course, the poet who started the conversation) to the previous poem. Although each poet's style differs from the last, the poem as a whole flows well right to the end.

If you are discouraged to read this book because you don't really care for poetry, you should still give it a chance. After all, the poems read like an artistic ongoing discussion causing you to forget the fact that you're reading poetry. I am not a big poetry reader myself, but I applaud the contributors of this book for creating a unique artistic conversation about the ideas and issues of America. ( )