The online literary magazine Switchback has just published Robbi Nester’s review of Breakdown: Banjo Poems. Nester draws attention to the serious play at work in the collection, as well as to the questions it raises about American history and culture.

Even divorced from these racial overtones, it may be hard to take this instrument seriously. We might even agree with Bonta’s playful admonition that “It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise / than for a man to hear the music of banjos” (“Banjo Proverbs”).

As these poems reveal though, if we take this view of the banjo, we have judged the parody without a clear understanding of its source. By discounting this history, we have further undermined the people the minstrel shows sought to mock.

[…]

Bonta has made a career of revealing the power of other humble implements in his previous work. For example, his book Odes to Tools, published by Phoenician Press in 2010, the poet considers the hammer, plane, and other instruments of labor in a way that will make it impossible for one to regard them with indifference.

Indeed, to read this writer’s poetry, his blogs, and all the other works of his busy hands is to see the world in an entirely new way.

I am not sure I recognize the fabulous writer Nester is describing here, but this review sure makes me want to make his acquaintance! Gosh. (Read the rest.)