Poets and Poems: John Sibley Williams and “Skyscrape”

I grew up in a world where chalk used on driveways and sidewalks meant kids were exercising their artistic instincts or playing hopscotch. As poet John Sibley Williams reminds us in his newest chapbook, chalk on the sidewalk today too often signifies a crime scene. 

Skyscrape is a collection of 20 poems, a slender volume that packs a wallop. While it probes into contemporary issues, like crime, guns, immigration, political fault lines, and race, it’s not a political diatribe. Instead, Williams turns the focus inward, attempting to come to personal terms with what so often seems to be tearing America apart, with no resolution in sight.

 

Contemporary society is so saturated with politics that one’s first inclination might be to turn away from a collection like this one. That would be a mistake. Williams softens the edges by raising the issues in the context of his own life, and the lives of his children. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.