When Angels Speak of Love

February 1, 2007
With more than 20 books to her name, bell hooks is known best for her revolutionary cultural critique, powerful racial and feminist writing, and educational theory. Yet hooks has also delved into the topic of love, and in this moving new poetry collection offers brief glimpses of love in all of its stages. A truly tasty sampling, it is akin to an " amuse-bouche." Exciting the senses and offering gleanings from hooks' theories of love, the tiny poems range in ingredients from the all-consuming fire of passion to lovers' cruelty to divine communion through surrender. For a woman whose radical ideas have influenced a generation or two, these poems seem strikingly old-fashioned in their evocation of a nearly Pre-Raphaelite sensibility and suggestion of simple devotion rather than romance. Yet, hooks' careful word choice and clever rhythms are refreshingly original. Like a thin broth that gets boiled down to a rich reduction, these poems offer an intoxicating essence that can thoroughly nourish readers, heart and soul.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)