Review of TODAY THEN TOMORROW by Andy Levine

Review of TODAY THEN TOMORROW by Andy Levine, Vizion Books, 2010, 69 pages, no bio included.

Review by Barbara Bialick

Getting one’s precious poems published in a book is a joy that shouldn’t be denied.
On the other hand, it’s important to know who your audience is…Andy Levine’s friends and family should enjoy his book Today Then Tomorrow. If he wants a wider audience, he needs to re-edit almost everything, I am sorry to say. Even in the friendlier realm of the small press, the readers are looking for one’s best effort. He probably has profound ideas that I skimmed over because there was little metaphor, imagery, alliteration and too much prose to be found. He also writes most of these poems in singy song rhyme. Near the third and fourth section I woke up to realize he does have a repeating rhythm throughout this too-lengthy work. I began to sound it out as a sort of rap style, only without the colorful language. He should keep rapping and writing because as Levine says himself, “a genuine effort/is needed/to mend a world/devastated.”

Here’s an example of his apparent rap rhythm in a poem whose title I don’t get,

“Press Control, Alternative Deletion”:

How often
do you question
what you believe,
as doubt
dawns scrutiny
of information received...

…The new pollution
is promotion
staining streets
and our eyes,
conditioning our mind
even more
than we realize…

As he titles his first section, I will conclude this review: “Live with others, think on your own.”